VB and VBA are extremely powerful, when placed in the right hands. Don't listen to the pompous asses that claim it's a 'toy'. If you don't want to devote the rest of your life to programming, forget C++ .
It seriously depends on what kind of computation power you need. If it's to compute REAL TIME technicals, Arbitrage opportunities on multiple stocks and markets, forget VB, it is not even worth trying, it will be slow and unreliable. C/C++ is for the more upper scale systems that need rapid calculations. It is low level and therefore adequate for this kind of use. VB is more for the front-end IMO, anything that doesn't require to handle large computations. However, C/C++ development takes time while VB is more user friendly and can be up and running in a lot less time.
I have integrated C# and VB6 thru COM. I am not a VB programmer, but there are some things that are written in VB that I have found are useful to reuse - so I packaged it as a VB ActiveX dll and call it from C# thru COM. Honestly, the "wizards" have become so good in C#.net, I don't know that VB is any easier anymore than C#.net or C++.net. Therefore, my choice is always C#.net if I don't need portability, or C++.net if I do... nitro
I disagree 100%. I have programmed in many languages as a hobbyist and Visual Basic 6, when coded neatly, is amazingly fast. The amount of difference in time (if any) that a program I design to scan for arb opps with Visual Basic would be from another language would be insignificant compared to the random latency shifts in transmission speeds through the net. I can easily collect 10 stocks in an array, scan each of them with 10 different scanning routines and get a result back from a function instantaneously. If you are anal about millionths of a second, than you might want to ping a site 5,000 times and notice that the difference in times between each ping would be far greater than any "millionth" of a second you would save in processing time. The trouble might come if I wanted to scan 500 stocks and 10,000 options on them and scan them with many types of functions -- then it won't matter what programming language you use -- you'll need more than one computer. I'm looking at eventually using three computers to get started and then go from there. If I can make three talk and work, then adding others is trivial. One needs to have a fast link to the exchanges and the others behind it need to just pull the info from the server and run all the numbers, spit back results and have the main one spit out the orders back to the exchanges.
C++/C# is better because that's the only programming language I know and only programming language I need. 2-3 years ago, I was very scared of the business, now I'm not scared but respect it. Anyways, I wanted to have a backup plan to pay my bills just in case I couldn't make it in the firm I traded. I have the CCNA(Cisco Cert. Network Associate) and learned the C++. I've never been put in a situation to use both. EasyLanguage and WealthScript can do everything I want to test and use now. It is a piece of mind to have a back-up skill in life, just in case. Sure, VB is a relatively easier language to learn but it's more productive and on-the-money to learn C++/C#, in terms of demand of the skill, for the "just in case". It was a gradual learning curve but I think that doing this let me trade more comfortably than not taking it. I think it's all about personal preference, what they want from programming.
Performance hasn't been a material distinguishing factor between VB and VC++ since VB went to full machine code compilation instead of just p-Code. You can build realtime software without problem in VB. The common compiled environment of .NET means there's even less of a difference. The decision is now solely the specific problem you're solving, e.g., if you're interfacing to an existing C++ based library (which VB can't do without building wrappers), and what you're comfortable with.