OK. Taking the Leap to C++. Right Descision? [closed]

I would spend more time with VB.NET if I were in your shoes as you can develop the same apps (strictly speaking from a .NET perspective) for the most part as you could with C++ and it's much simpler to use. Once you get into C++ there are a lot of things (like pointers that often takes some time to get familiar with) that you will be require to learn in order to write memory efficient programs. Instead of switching languages, try learning more about how languages function (memory, runtimes, other high level languages, etcetera) and once you feel confident in them jump into C++.

I only recommend this approach because you've already started with VB.NET and would be better off developing your advanced skills in what you know. If you hadn't started programming yet I'd recommend coming into C++ and then choosing to move out of it from there. Again, I only recommend you stick with VB.NET for the simple fact that you've already got experience in it and you should stick with it until you understand some more complex functionality (not just in VB but as a programming language in general) such as patterns, threading and other such nifty features that you can generally implement in most languages with some syntax modifications.

Strictly my 2 cent.

EDIT

To add more options, from your current position, I would work with VB.NET until I felt comfortable making apps by hand (not using auto-generated files) and understanding how to use and implement more advanced OOP and Programming features. Then I would move onto a different language that is more widely used like Java. The benefit of Java is you get a lot of C++ flavor (syntax) without the need to learn how pointers and memory work and you still don't need to do basic memory management. Once I was confident enough in Java to do what I could do in VB.NET (or more) I would then move to something like C++.

Additional Information

You are not incorrect, C++ is not dependent on .NET or Windows in any way. Unless of course you're developing a Visual C++ .NET applicaiton for Windows. In which case it's dependent on both. A popular windowing toolkit that is cross platform for C++ is Qt which I've used before could also be used to build Windows applications outside of the constraints of .NET. That being said, it's not as easy to get a non-.NET C++ compiled in a Windows environment as it is to compile C++ apps on OS X or Linux (both of which I'd recommend over Windows for learning C++).

To sum up, a path I recommend is Keep with VB -> Learn everything you can do in VB for Java -> Pick up C++.

Background Information

Not that it's terribly necessary but these opinions came about because I started with Java and stuck with it until I was fairly capable of building an GUI app from the ground up without the aid of the IDE to generate anything other than a manifest (those things never worked when I did them by hand) before I moved on to my first language after Java which was C# (not much of a transition) and from there I went into PHP, then Javascript, Ruby, Python and the list goes on. One of the latest languages I learned was C++ and having learned a lot of things in different languages (and why things are done certain ways in them) I was able to pick up and understand a lot of C++ things rather quickly (compared to my first feeble attempts at back when I had just learned the basics of Java). This is why I recommend becoming more experienced with the "simple" languages since you've already started there before moving on.