Visual Basic .NET

Visual Basic .NET

Paradigm	Structured, imperative, object-oriented and declarative
Designed by	Microsoft
Developer	Microsoft
First appeared	2001
Stable release	16.9[1]  / 2 March 2024; 9 months ago (2 March 2024)
Typing discipline	Static, both strong and weak, both safe and unsafe, nominative
Platform	CLR
OS	Chiefly Windows Also on Android, BSD, iOS, Linux, Mac OS X, Solaris and Unix
Filename extensions	.vb
Website	msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/vstudio/hh388573
Major implementations
Microsoft Visual Studio, Microsoft Visual Studio Express, SharpDevelop, MonoDevelop, .NET Framework SDK and Mono
Dialects
Microsoft Visual Basic
Influenced by
.NET Framework

Visual Basic .NET is the second series of Microsoft's Visual Basic series. It is sometimes shortened to VB.NET. It is an IDE (Integrated Development Environment) and it includes an easy 'drag-and-drop' interface. It can make complete programs for Windows very easily.

Background

Visual Basic

See also: Visual Basic

It was first released in 1992 by Microsoft. Visual Basic is a simple way to make programs for Windows. It started as Project Ruby by Alan Cooper and then was sold to Microsoft. The system is built loosely on the original BASIC programming language released in 1963 and it can 'Test' programs in real-time, error checking them in a user-friendly way.

.NET Framework

This package is the 'backbone' of Visual Basic .NET. When applications are created, the Windows Installer includes the framework with it. It includes all the items needed to run the VB.NET applications that have been made.

Editions

Visual Basic was first released in May 1991 for Windows. Many versions have been released since then. These are listed below:

Name	Operating System	Date Released
Visual Basic .NET	Windows	2002
Visual Basic .NET 2003	Windows	2003
Visual Basic 2005	Windows	2005
Visual Basic 2005 Studio	Windows	2005
Visual Basic 2008 Studio	Windows	2008
Visual Basic 2010 Studio	Windows	2010

Visual Basic 2010 Express Edition

This is a free version of Visual Basic 2010 released officially from Microsoft. It is aimed at encouraging more newbie programmers to try the series. The program can be downloaded from Microsoft's Website.

Controls

Visual Basic .NET uses many controls which can be added to the forms or windows in the application. Other developers can create controls for applications, not just the ones that Microsoft include.

Examples

The following example makes a program window pop up that says "Hello World" and has a button that says "OK" used to close the window:

Public Sub button1_Click(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles button1.Click
    MsgBox("Hello World")
End Sub

Other websites

• VB.NET Step by Step Tutorial
• Visual Studio .NET Homepage
• Visual Studio Express Homepage

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