Visual Basic 15 on .NET framework 4.7 with Visual Studio 2017 Release Candidate edition.

Some information

Visual Basic is a third-generation event-driven programming language and integrated development environment (IDE) from Microsoft for its Component Object Model (COM) programming model first released in 1991 and declared legacy during 2008. Microsoft intended Visual Basic to be relatively easy to learn and use.[1][2] Visual Basic was derived from BASIC, a user-friendly programming language designed for beginners, and it 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 developed third party components.[3][4][5][6][7] Programs written in Visual Basic can also use the Windows API, which requires external function declarations.

The final release was version 6 in 1998 (now known simply as Visual Basic). On April 8, 2008 Microsoft stopped supporting Visual Basic 6.0 IDE. The Microsoft Visual Basic team still maintains compatibility for Visual Basic 6.0 applications on Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008 including R2, Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 8.1, Windows Server 2012 and Windows 10 through its "It Just Works" program.[8] In 2014, some software developers still preferred Visual Basic 6.0 over its successor, Visual Basic .NET.[3][9] In 2014 some developers lobbied for a new version of Visual Basic 6.0.[10][11][12][13] In 2016, Visual Basic 6.0 won the technical impact award at The 19th Annual D.I.C.E. Awards.[14][15][16] 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.[17]

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 later 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.