IMHO Vb is one of the easiest ways to greate programs the only easier way would be to use .net ; if u want a go @ proprer programming languages try pascal first it will ease the transition to more powerful languages EG C/C++ (pascal is today a training language , thats the only use for it)
may i also suggest getting ur hands on a linux distro as they usually arrive with some IDEs (interactive developer environments) which will help u program also Linux comes woth the GCC which includes front ends for C, C++, Objective-C, Fortran, Java, and Ada
the links on that site are all external tho i dunno how reliable they are some times it displays a address bottom of screen when i click on a link , clik on that addy