Visual Basic Splash Screen

Visual Basic (VB) is an event driven programming language and associated development environment created by Microsoft. In business programming, it has one of the largest user bases.

It is derived heavily from BASIC and enables rapid application development (RAD) of graphical user interface (GUI) applications, access to databases using DAO, RDO, or ADO, and creation of ActiveX controls and objects. A programmer can put together an application using the components provided with Visual Basic itself.

As of 2003, 52 percent of software developers used Visual Basic, making it the most popular programming language at that time. 43 percent of those Visual Basic developers, however, planned to move to other languages. The popularity of Visual Basic perhaps results from its easy to understand syntax. Like all other Turing complete programming languages, it can also be used to create arbitrarily complex applications. Programs written in Visual Basic can use the Windows API, but doing so requires external function declarations.

Timeline of Visual Basic before Visual Basic .NET

Visual Basic 1.0 (May 1991) was released for Windows.

Visual Basic 1.0 for DOS was released in September 1992. The language itself was not quite compatible with Visual Basic for Windows, as it was actually the next version of Microsoft's DOS-based BASIC compilers, QuickBASIC and BASIC Professional Development System. The interface was barely graphical, using extended ASCII characters to simulate the appearance of a GUI.

Visual Basic 2.0 was released in November 1992. The programming environment was easier to use, and its speed was improved.

Visual Basic 3.0 was released in the summer of 1993 and came in Standard and Professional versions. VB 3 included version 1.1 of the Microsoft Jet database engine that could read and write Jet (or Access) 1.x databases.

Visual Basic 4.0 (August 1995) was the first version that could create 32-bit as well as 16-bit Windows programs. It also introduced the ability to write classes in Visual Basic.

With version 5.0 (February 1997), Microsoft released Visual Basic exclusively for 32-bit versions of Windows. Programmers who preferred to write 16-bit programs were able to import programs written in Visual Basic 4.0 to Visual Basic 5.0, and Visual Basic 5.0 programs can easily be converted with Visual Basic 4.0. Visual Basic 5.0 also introduced the ability to create custom user controls, as well as the ability to compile to native Windows executable code, speeding up runtime code execution.

Visual Basic 6.0 (Mid 1998) improved in a number of areas, including the ability to create web-based applications. VB6 is currently scheduled to enter Microsoft's "non-supported phase" starting March 2008.

In April 2005 Microsoft announced that support for non .NET versions of Visual Basic would end within a few years. The Visual Basic community instantly expressed its concern and lobbied users to sign a petition to keep the product alive. Microsoft has so far refused to change their position on the matter. Ironically, around this time, it was exposed that Microsoft's new anti-spyware offering, Microsoft AntiSpyware, was coded in Visual Basic 6.0 (although this can be explained by the fact that the product was "inherited" with Microsoft's acquisition of GIANT). Windows Defender Beta 2 was rewritten as C++/CLI code, as mentioned in Paul Thurrott's review of this product.

Timeline of Visual Basic .NET

Visual Basic .NET was launched in 2002 along with the .NET Framework. Its language features are much richer than previous versions, although it is more complex. VB .Net is not backwards compatible, so many older VB programs must be modified to remove features incompatible with VB .Net (e.g., non-zero base arrays, the use of Variant, etc.)

Visual Basic .NET 2003 was launched in 2003 along with the .NET Framework 1.1.

In 2004 Microsoft released a beta version of Visual Studio.NET 2005 (codename Whidbey). This included a beta of version 2.0 of Visual Basic .NET

Also in 2004, Microsoft announced a return to offering support for Visual Basic hobbyists with the announcement of Visual Basic Express, and Visual Web Developer Express. Both are reduced feature versions of Visual Studio 2005 and support Visual Basic.NET 2.0.

On November 7 2005 Visual Studio 2005 was released, which includes Visual Basic .NET 2005 along with the .NET Framework 2.0. Microsoft also introduced Visual Basic 2005 Express Edition, a cut-down free edition designed to introduce people to the Visual Basic .NET environment.