Visual Basic

Introduction
Visual Basic is a third-generation event-driven programming language and integrated
development environment (IDE) from Microsoft for its Computer programming model first
released in 1991. Microsoft intends Visual Basic to be relatively easy to learn and use. Visual
Basic was derived from BASIC and enables the rapid application development (RAD) of
graphical user interface (GUI) applications, access to databases using Data Access Objects,
Remote Data Objects, or ActiveX Data Objects, and creation of ActiveX controls and objects.

A programmer can create an application using the components provided by the Visual Basic
program itself. Over time the community of programmers have developed new third party
components, keeping this programming language to modern standards. Programs written in
Visual Basic can also use the Windows API, which requires external function declarations.
Furthermore, new third party functions (which are open source) using part VB6 source code
and part embedded machine code, make the Visual Basic 6.0 applications faster than those
designed in C++.

The final release was version 6 in 1998 (now known simply as Visual Basic), nevertheless,
Microsoft extended the support for Visual Basic 6.0 until 2023 under "It Just Works"
statement.

A dialect of Visual Basic, Visual Basic for Applications (VBA), is used as a macro or
scripting language within several Microsoft applications, including Microsoft Office.

History
VB 1.0 was introduced in 1991. The drag and drop design for creating the user interface is
derived from a prototype form generator developed by Alan Cooper and his company called
Tripod. Microsoft contracted with Cooper and his associates to develop Tripod into a
programmable form system for Windows 3.0, under the code name Ruby (no relation to the
Ruby programming language).

Tripod did not include a programming language at all. Microsoft decided to combine Ruby
with the Basic language to create Visual Basic.
The Ruby interface generator provided the "visual" part of Visual Basic and this was
combined with the "EB" Embedded BASIC engine designed for Microsoft's abandoned
"Omega" database system. Ruby also provided the ability to load dynamic link libraries
containing additional controls (then called "gizmos"), which later became the VBX interface.

Timeline Description

 Project 'basic Thunder' was initiated in 1990

 Visual Basic 1.0 (May 1991) was released for Windows at the Comdex/Windows
World trade show in Atlanta, Georgia.
 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, Quick BASIC and BASIC
Professional Development System. The interface used a Text user interface, 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. Notably, forms became instantiable objects,
thus laying the foundational concepts of class modules as were later offered in VB4.
 Visual Basic 3.0 was released in the summer of 1993 and came in Standard and
Professional versions. VB3 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 has three editions; Standard, Professional, and
Enterprise. It also introduced the ability to write non-GUI classes in Visual Basic.
Incompatibilities between different releases of VB4 caused installation and operation
problems. While previous versions of Visual Basic had used VBX controls, Visual
Basic now used OLE controls (with files names ending in .OCX) instead. These were
later to be named ActiveX controls.
 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 calculation-intensive code
execution. A free, downloadable Control Creation Edition was also released for
creation of ActiveX controls. It was also used as an introductory form of Visual
Basic: a regular .exe project could be created and run in the IDE, but not compiled.
 Visual Basic 6.0 (Mid-1998) improved in a number of areas including the ability to
create web-based applications. Visual Basic 6.0 has entered Microsoft's "non-
supported phase" as of March 2008. Windows Vista.
 Windows Server 2008 and Windows 7, no longer support the Visual Basic 6.0
development environment, but still support the runtime. Microsoft announced in
February 2012 that they support the runtime in Windows 8.
 Mainstream Support for Microsoft Visual Basic 6.0 ended on March 31, 2005.
Extended support ended in March 2008. In response, the Visual Basic user
community expressed its grave 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 (2005), it was exposed that Microsoft's new anti-spyware
 offering, Microsoft Anti Spyware (part of the GIANT Company Software purchase),
was coded in Visual Basic 6.0. Its replacement, Windows Defender, was rewritten in
C++.

Derivative languages
Microsoft has developed derivatives of Visual Basic for use in scripting. Visual Basic itself is
derived heavily from BASIC, and subsequently has been replaced with a .NET platform
version.
Some of the derived languages are:
 Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) is included in many Microsoft applications
(Microsoft Office), and also in many third-party products like SolidWorks, AutoCAD,
WordPerfect Office 2002, ArcGIS, Sage 300 ERP, and Business Objects Desktop
Intelligence. There are small inconsistencies in the way VBA is implemented in
different applications, but it is largely the same language as Visual Basic 6.0 and uses
the same runtime library. Visual Basic development ended with 6.0, but in 2010
Microsoft introduced VBA 7 to provide extended features and add 64-bit support.
 VBScript is the default language for Active Server Pages. It can be used in Windows
scripting and client-side web page scripting. It resembles VB in syntax, but is a
separate language—executed by vbscript.dll instead of the VB runtime. ASP and
VBScript should not be confused with ASP.NET, which uses the .NET Framework
for compiled web pages.
 Visual Basic .NET is Microsoft's designated successor to Visual Basic 6.0, and is part
of Microsoft's .NET platform. Visual Basic.Net compiles and runs using the .NET
Framework. It is not backwards compatible with Visual Basic 6.0. An automated
conversion tool exists, but fully automated conversion for most projects is impossible.
 Open Office Basic is a Visual Basic compatible interpreter that originated in Star
Office suite.
 Gambas is a Visual Basic inspired free software programming language for the Linux
operating system. It is not a clone of Visual Basic, but it does have the ability to
convert Visual Basic programs to Gambas.
 WinWrap Basic is a third-party VBA variant used with various software, and
available for programmers to use to build a macro facility into their programmes.
 Earlier versions of Microsoft Word use a variant of Visual Basic called WordBasic.

Significant Language Features

Like the BASIC programming language, Visual Basic was designed to accommodate
beginner programmers.
Programmers can create both simple and complex GUI applications. Programming in VB is a
combination of visually arranging components or controls on a form, specifying attributes
and actions for those components, and writing additional lines of code for more functionality.
Since VB defines default attributes and actions for the components, a programmer can
develop a simple program without writing much code. Programs built with earlier versions
suffered performance problems, but faster computers and native code compilation has made
this less of an issue.
Forms are created using drag-and-drop techniques. A tool is used to place controls (e.g., text
boxes, buttons, etc.) on the form (window). Controls have attributes and event handlers
associated with them. Default values are provided when the control is created, but may be
changed by the programmer. Many attribute values can be modified during run time based on
user actions or changes in the environment, providing a dynamic application. For example,
code can be inserted into the form resize event handler to reposition a control so that it
remains centered on the form, expands to fill up the form, etc. By inserting code into the
event handler for a keypress in a text box, the program can automatically translate the case of
the text being entered, or even prevent certain characters from being inserted.
Visual Basic can create executables (EXE files), ActiveX controls, or DLL files, but is
primarily used to develop Windows applications and to interface database systems. Dialog
boxes with less functionality can be used to provide pop-up capabilities. Controls provide the
basic functionality of the application, while programmers can insert additional logic within
the appropriate event handlers.
For example, a drop-down combination box automatically displays a list. When the user
selects an element, an event handler is called that executes code that the programmer created
to perform the action for that list item.
Alternatively, a Visual Basic component can have no user interface, and instead provide
ActiveX objects to other programs via Component Object Model (COM). This allows for
server-side processing or an add-in module.
The runtime recovers unused memory using reference counting, which depends on variables
passing out of scope or being set to nothing, avoiding the problem of memory leaks common
to other languages. There is a large library of utility objects, and the language provides basic
object oriented support. Unlike many other programming languages,
Visual Basic is generally not case sensitive—though it transforms keywords into a standard
case configuration and forces the case of variable names to conform to the case of the entry in
the symbol table. String comparisons are case sensitive by default.
The Visual Basic compiler is shared with other Visual Studio languages (C, C++), but
restrictions in the IDE do not allow creation of some targets (Windows model DLLs) and
threading models.

Visual Basic is not only a programming language, but also a complete graphical development
environment. This environment allows users with little programming experience
to quickly develop useful Microsoft Windows applications which have the ability to use OLE
(Object Linking and Embedding) objects, such as an Excel spreadsheet. Visual Basic also has
the ability to develop programs that can be used as a front end application to a database
system, serving as the user interface which collects user input and displays formatted output
in a more appealing and useful form than many SQL versions are capable of.

Visual Basic's main selling point is the ease with which it allows the user to create nice
looking, graphical programs with little coding by the programmer, unlike many other
languages that may take hundreds of lines of programmer keyed code. As the programmer
works in the graphical environment, much of the program code is automatically generated by
the Visual Basic program. In order to understand how this happens it is necessary to
understand the major concepts, objects and tools used by Visual Basic. The main object in
Visual Basic is called a form. When we open a new project, you will start with a clear form
that looks similar to this:
This form will eventually be incorporated into our program as a window. To this form you
add controls. Controls are things like text boxes, check boxes and command buttons. Controls
are added to your form by choosing them from the Visual Basic "tool box" with the mouse
and inserting them in the form. Yours may look different, but the basic Visual Basic Tool
Box looks like this:
Once forms/controls are created, you can change the properties (appearance, structure etc.)
related to those objects in that particular objects properties window. From this window, we
choose the property you want to change from the list and change its corresponding setting.
Here is an example of a properties window:
Finally, we can add events to your controls. Events are responses to actions performed on
controls. For example, in the "Hello world" program sample on this page, when you click on
the command button on our form the event that is triggered is the output of the message
"Hello world" to the screen. Code must be written to create an event. You can do this in
Visual Basic's code window. Yours will look similar to this (except of course, the body of
the sub-procedure where the actions are specified):

Once the code box is open, we select the object to create an event for and the
triggering action (such as a certain mouse action) from the drop down menus in the
code box. We can open a code box for a particular form by choosing it from
the project window and selecting the View Code button. The project window
contains a list of objects associated with that project. Below is an example of a
project window:

Once all your objects are created, you can combine them to form a single executable program
that can be run outside of the Visual Basic environment, in Microsoft Windows
Characteristic
The following Visual Basic traits differ from C-derived languages:
 Statements tend to terminate with keywords, such as "End If", instead of using "{}"s
to group statements.
 Multiple variable assignment is not possible. A = B = C does not imply that the values
of A, B and C are equal. The Boolean result of "Is B = C?" is stored in A. The result
stored in A would therefore be either false or true.
 Boolean constant True has numeric value −1. This is because the Boolean data type is
stored as a 16-bit signed integer. In this construct −1 evaluates to 16 binary 1s (the
Boolean value True), and 0 as 16 0s (the Boolean value False). This is apparent when
performing a Not operation on a 16 bit signed integer value 0, which returns the
integer value −1, in other words True = Not False. This inherent functionality
becomes especially useful when performing logical operations on the individual bits
of an integer such as And, Or, Xor and Not. This definition of True is also consistent
with BASIC since the early 1970s Microsoft BASIC implementation and is also
related to the characteristics of CPU instructions at the time.
 Logical and bitwise operators are unified. This is unlike some C-derived languages
(such as Perl), which have separate logical and bitwise operators. This again is a
traditional feature of BASIC.
 Variable array base. Arrays are declared by specifying the upper and lower bounds in
a way similar to Pascal and Fortran. It is also possible to use the Option Base
statement to set the default lower bound. Use of the Option Base statement can lead to
confusion when reading Visual Basic code and is best avoided by always explicitly
specifying the lower bound of the array. This lower bound is not limited to 0 or 1,
because it can also be set by declaration. In this way, both the lower and upper bounds
are programmable. In more subscript-limited languages, the lower bound of the array
is not variable. This uncommon trait does exist in Visual Basic .NET but not in
VBScript. OPTION BASE was introduced by ANSI, with the standard for ANSI
Minimal BASIC in the late 1970s.
 Relatively strong integration with the Windows operating system and the Component
Object Model. The native types for strings and arrays are the dedicated COM types,
BSTR and SAFEARRAY.
 Integers are automatically promoted to reals in expressions that involve the normal
division operator (/) so that division of one integer by another produces the
intuitively correct result. VB provides a specific integer divide operator (\) that does
truncate
 The code windows in Visual Basic

Performance and other issue

Earlier versions of Visual Basic (prior to version 5) compiled the code to P-Code only. The P-
Code is interpreted by the language runtime. The benefits of P-Code include portability and
smaller binary file sizes, but it usually slows down the execution, since having a runtime adds
an additional layer of interpretation. However, small amounts of code and algorithms can be
constructed to run faster than compiled native code.
Visual Basic applications require Microsoft Visual Basic runtime MSVBVMxx.DLL, where
xx is the relevant version number, either 50 or 60. MSVBVM60.dll comes as standard with
Windows in all editions after Windows 98 while MSVBVM50.dll comes with all editions
after Windows 95. A Windows 95 machine would however require inclusion with the
installer of whichever dll was needed by the program.

Visual Basic 5 and 6 can compile code to either native or P-Code but in either case the
runtime is still required for built in functions and forms management.
Criticisms levelled at Visual Basic editions prior to VB.NET include:
• Versioning problems associated with various runtime DLLs, known as DLL hell
• Poor support for object-oriented programming
• Inability to create multi-threaded applications, without resorting to Windows API calls
• Inability to create Windows services
• Variant types have a greater performance and storage overhead than strongly typed
programming languages
• Dependency on complex and fragile COM Registry entries
• The development environment is no longer supported by Microsoft.

Legacy development and support

All versions of the Visual Basic development environment from 1.0 to 6.0 are now retired
and unsupported by Microsoft. The associated runtime environments are also unsupported,
except for the Visual Basic 6 core runtime environment, which Microsoft officially supports
for the lifetime of Windows 8. Third party components that shipped with Visual Studio 6.0
are not included in this support statement. Some legacy Visual Basic components may still
work on newer platforms, despite being unsupported by Microsoft and other vendors.
Development and maintenance development for Visual Basic 6 is possible on legacy
Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 2003 using Visual Studio 6.0 platforms, but is
unsupported. Documentation for Visual Basic 6.0, its application programming interface and
tools is best covered in the last MSDN release before Visual Studio.NET 2002 . Later
releases of MSDN focused on .NET development and had significant parts of the Visual
Basic 6.0 programming documentation removed. The Visual Basic IDE can be installed and
used on Windows Vista, 7 and 8, where it exhibits some minor incompatibilities that do not
hinder normal software development and maintenance. As of August 2008, both Visual
Studio 6.0 and the MSDN documentation mentioned above are available for download by
MSDN subscribers.

Area of application
The term "Personal Programming" refers to the idea that, wherever you work, whatever you
do, you can expand your computer's usefulness by writing applications to use in your own
job. Personal Programming is what Visual Basic is all about.

Using Visual Basic's tools, you quickly translate an abstract idea into a program design you
can actually see on the screen. VB encourages you to experiment, revise, correct, and
network your design until the new project meets your requirements. However, most of all, it
inspires your imagination and creativity.

Visual Basic is ideal for developing applications that run in the new Windows 95 operating
system. VB presents a 3-step approach for creating programs:

1. Design the appearance of your application.

2. Assign property settings to the objects of your program.
3. Write the code to direct specific tasks at runtime.
Visual Basic can and is used in a number of different areas, for example:

 Education
 Research
 Medicine
 Business
 Commerce
 Marketing and Sales
 Accounting
 Consulting
 Law
 Science