I'm moving from Java Development to a MSFT environment. The app is currently written in VB6 and while its going to go to VB.NET/C# in the future, I need to find a way to pick up VB6 now. I'm told its old, and there will be no books on it available these days.
Any tips? Sites?
The best tip is to... RUN! ;-)
No, there are still tons to vb sites out there, and you should still be able to pick up loads of second hand books for VB6 for next to nothing.
There are tons of books and you can probably get them dirt cheap since the technology is so old. For example, I just picked up some extra copies of a 3" thick hardback books that I did some writing for back in 1998 for under $3 on Amazon.
Also, given its longevity there is a ton of reference material out on the Net for it that has accumulated over time.
Don't let people scare you about VB6, it is a bit primitive compared to modern development platforms, but it wouldn't be so widely used if it didn't get the job done. That said, go with a more modern development tool unless you don't have a choice for the reasons given by the others on this post.
I'm sure you can get some books on it. If Amazon has none, try Ebay?
It's a simple language, though - you shouldn't have much trouble picking it up! There's always the MSDN documentation.
I'm having the opposite problem: I've got a few old apps in VB and need to update one of them, but can't find the install media!
IMHO the step from Java to VB6 is not that big... If you install Visual Studio and the MSDN library that comes with it you have a good starting point. Look at some code, put the cursor at a function and press F1. The "online" documentation that comes with VB6 is really helpful, unlike later versions. ;-) Also the auto complete functionality in Visual Studio is really helpful. I find it more helpful that the in-line completion in Eclipse for Java.
One of the upside of the Visual Basic design is that it is designed to be human readable (with if-then-else instead of brackets and so on). Of course that comes down to the single developer to write understandable and well commented code there as well... A good starting point would be to find a guide that explains how different datatypes in VB6 are working. The difference between simple data types and objects. And how these are passed in to a function as an argument: "ByVal" versus "ByRef". I think this is one of the big "dangers" as a beginner in VB6. Once you get your head around it, it is easy.
As previous posters said there is an absolute ton of help available for vb6 online and very cheaply on amazon. Francesco Balana's book "Programming Visual Basic 6.0" would be my recommendation as the best book to get. It's tough enough in parts but well worth the effort as the reason for that is the information he's delivering will give you a far deeper understanding of the subject than "for dummies" types of book. He's also written what is I believe is considered one of best books on the .net visual basic and is probably the foremost expert on migrating from vb6 to vb.net and the pitfalls therein.
