Visual Basic 2005 for Programmers (2nd Edition)

1.3. Visual Basic

Visual Basic evolved from BASIC (Beginner's All-Purpose Symbolic Instruction Code), developed in the mid-1960s by Professors John Kemeny and Thomas Kurtz of Dartmouth College as a language for writing simple programs. BASIC's primary purpose was to familiarize novices with programming techniques.

The widespread use of BASIC on various types of computers led to many enhancements to the language. When Bill Gates founded Microsoft Corporation, he implemented BASIC on several early personal computers. With the development of the Microsoft Windows graphical user interface (GUI) in the late 1980s and the early 1990s, the natural evolution of BASIC was Visual Basic, introduced by Microsoft in 1991. Visual Basic makes the development of Windows applications convenient.

Until the first version of Visual Basic appeared in 1991, developing Microsoft Windows-based applications was a difficult and cumbersome process. Although Visual Basic is derived from the BASIC programming language, it is a distinctly different language that offers such powerful features as graphical user interfaces, event handling, object-oriented programming, and exception handling. Visual Basic is an event-driven language (i.e., the programs respond to user-initiated events such as mouse clicks and keystrokes). Also, it is a visual programming language in which programs are created using an Integrated Development Environment (IDE) in which you can write, run, test and debug Visual Basic programs conveniently.

The advancement of programming tools and consumer-electronic devices created many challenges. Integrating software components from diverse languages proved difficult. Developers also discovered they needed Web-based applications that could be accessed and used via the Internet. As programmable devices, such as personal digital assistants (PDAs) and cell phones, grew in popularity in the late 1990s, the need for these components to interact with others via the Internet rose dramatically. As a result of the popularity of mobile electronic devices, software developers realized that their clientele was no longer restricted to desktop users. Developers recognized the need for software accessible to anyone from almost any type of device.

To address these needs, Microsoft announced the introduction of its .NET (pronounced "dot-net") strategy in 2000. The .NET platform is one over which Web-based applications can be distributed to a variety of devices (such as PDAs and cell phones) and to desktop computers. The .NET platform enables programs created in different programming languages to communicate easily with each other.

Visual Basic offers powerful object-oriented programming capabilities, including a substantial library of components, allowing you to develop applications even faster. Also, Visual Basic applications can interact via the Internet, using industry standards such as XML, which is the subject of Chapter 19, and the XML-based Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP), which we discuss in Chapter 22, Web Services.