Need help with Visual BASIC

Question

I am in an intro to programming course, and I am writing a console on Visual Basic 2013.  My problem with Visual Basic right now is that I cannot get the formula to work.  All of my inputted values end up being 0's.  Am I using incorrect parameters,
am I misunderstanding how to use arguments; am I not coding correctly?  The scenario for my problem is:
      Areas of Rectangles: The area of a rectangle is the rectangle’s length times its width.  Design a program that asks for the length and width of two rectangles. The program should tell the user which rectangle has the
greater area, or if the areas are the same.
//My code is 
Module Module1
    Sub Main()
        Dim LENGTH As Double = 0
        Dim WIDTH As double = 0
        Dim AREA_1 As Double
        Dim AREA_2 As Double
        Dim RECTANGLE As String = " "
        area1(LENGTH, WIDTH)
        areaCalc1(AREA_1, LENGTH, WIDTH)
        area2(LENGTH, WIDTH)
        areaCalc2(AREA_2, LENGTH, WIDTH)
        decision(AREA_1, AREA_2, RECTANGLE)
        displayDec(RECTANGLE)
        Console.WriteLine("Press any key to exit...")
        Console.Read()
    End Sub
    Sub area1(ByVal LENGTH, WIDTH)
        Console.WriteLine("Please input the following for your first rectangle:")
        Console.Write("Length: ")
        LENGTH = Console.ReadLine()
        Console.Write("Width: ")
        WIDTH = Console.ReadLine()
    End Sub
    Sub areaCalc1(ByVal AREA_1, ByRef LENGTH, WIDTH)
        AREA_1 = LENGTH * WIDTH
        Console.WriteLine("This is the area for rectangle 1: " & AREA_1)
    End Sub
    Sub area2(ByVal LENGTH, WIDTH)
        Console.WriteLine("Please input the following for your second rectangle: ")
        Console.Write("Length: ")
        LENGTH = Console.ReadLine()
        Console.Write("Width: ")
        WIDTH = Console.ReadLine()
    End Sub
    Sub areaCalc2(ByVal AREA_2, ByRef LENGTH, WIDTH)
        AREA_2 = LENGTH * WIDTH
        Console.WriteLine("This is the area for rectangle 2: " & AREA_2)
    End Sub
    Sub decision(ByRef AREA_1, AREA_2, ByVal RECTANGLE)
        If AREA_1 < AREA_2 Then
            RECTANGLE = "rectangle 2"
        Else
            RECTANGLE = "rectangle 1"
        End If
    End Sub
    Sub displayDec(ByRef RECTANGLE)
        Console.WriteLine("The rectangle with the greater Area is " & RECTANGLE)
    End Sub
End Module

Answer 1

Hi,
  If you are just beginning to program i highly recommend setting the following options in the Visual Studio menu (Tools/Options). Open the Options window and go to the (Projects and Solutions) and click on (VB Defaults). Now set the options as follows.
Option Strict - On
Option Explicit - On
Option Infer - Off
 And probably one of the most important things to do is learning to Debug your code. That will save you hours of headaches when you get unexpected results in your applications. You will know how to track it down and find where in the code your results
are being thrown off. There are quite a few Debugging tutorials on the internet. Here are a few decent ones.
Debugging Express
Breakpoints and Debugging Tools
If you say it can`t be done then i`ll try it