Yes, my VB exposure is mostly limited to Excel and Word macros these days. And I, too, would recommend new programmers start with something else. (Depending on age and goal, I’d recommend Python, C#, or JavaScript.) But I’ve never been a syntax purist. I actually like most of the syntax in VB. It’s a bit wordy, but the IDE auto-fills in your “End” statements, so there’s no real slowdown. And I prefer the VB way of declaring functions and subs. The only irritation that comes to mind is Select Case, which I always found to be clunky compared to a decent switch block in C#.

That said, I also like the syntax in C#, especially for new language features (which are generally implemented in a more thoughtful way), and because the braces make it easy to quickly & visually group together blocks of code at a glance. Although if I was programming C# in a barebones text editor, I’m sure I’d commit seppuku the first time a bracket mismatch derailed my code.