Visual Basic

Hi I am new to the field of programming and there are some things that are confusing me. What is the difference between VB, VB.Net or VB6 or any other that exists? Also what is exactly Visual Basic(console mode)?
Help please...

Reply 1

davros

Original post by The learner

VB is just a generic term referring to most modern variants of Basic produced by Microsoft. It can also be used (rather lazily) to cover Visual Basic for Applications, which is a dialect of Basic embedded in Microsoft Office (and certain other products) that can't be used to create standalone programs, as well as things like VB 2008, VB 2010 and VB 2012 which are used to create standalone programs.

VB.NET is Microsoft's current incarnation of Visual Basic aimed at the Web environment, the naming convention being similar to other Web-oriented products like ASP.NET, C#.NET etc

VB6 is a very old version of the language - you are unlikely to see it in any production or commercial environment but some academic institutions (or exam boards) use it for programming projects.

"Console mode" refers to programs that run in an old-fashioned DOS window with simple command-line input and output. Such programs don't have a "visual" component i.e. Windows, icons, pointers etc.

(edited 8 years ago)

Reply 2

The learner

Original post by davros

Thank you for replying! So what I understood is that VB.NET is for Microsoft's applications whereas VB only is a programming language, right?

Reply 3

Async

Original post by davros

VB.NET is Microsoft's current incarnation of Visual Basic aimed at the Web environment, the naming convention being similar to other Web-oriented products like ASP.NET, C#.NET etc

Slightly wrong here, the .NET doesn't represent web environments. The .NET stands for the .NET framework that VB.NET and C# operate on. ASP.NET is the framework used to make web applications.

.NET -> Framework
ASP -> Framework

Reply 4

Andy98

Original post by The learner

Thank you for replying! So what I understood is that VB.NET is for Microsoft's applications whereas VB only is a programming language, right?

From what I know, VB is a programming language that can only be used on Windows.

Reply 5

The learner

Original post by Andy98

From what I know, VB is a programming language that can only be used on Windows.

Thanks

Reply 6

Andy98

Original post by The learner

Thanks

No prob

Reply 7

The learner

Original post by Async

Oh thanks! :smile:

Reply 8

davros

Original post by Async

Oops yeah - I was working from memory and trying to remember myself what some of the different variants did because I haven't done any 'pure' VB (as opposed to VBA) for a while :colondollar:

(was trying desperately to remember why VB.NET was called VB.NET when I was sure VB 2008 / 2010 / 2012 etc also ran on top of the .NET framework!!)

Reply 9

The learner

Original post by davros

Oops yeah - I was working from memory and trying to remember myself what some of the different variants did because I haven't done any 'pure' VB (as opposed to VBA) for a while :colondollar:

(was trying desperately to remember why VB.NET was called VB.NET when I was sure VB 2008 / 2010 / 2012 etc also ran on top of the .NET framework!!)

Its ok

Reply 10

Jon_6_sk

Just to weigh in, VB6 is reminiscent of Visual Studio. In that you still have forms which you can add controls to, assign actions to those controls and do most standard functions that you can in today's Visual Studio, so deal with ORMs, libraries, what have you.

VB6 is largely unsupported now. There were a lot of custom add on tools made by companies long since defunct. But, whoever said it, VB6 is still very much alive and in use in production systems! If you're in London for example, many of the services you use daily have a VB6 back end to it (fact!). It's not because VB6 is technically better, the corporate stance on anything is that if it's not broke, don't fix it. While VB6 is a pig to work with compared to today's Visual Studio environment, there is still call for that skillset simply to maintain what is out there. EDIT: That said, I wouldn't suggest putting any time into becoming familiar with it. As an employer myself, I would only ever list VB6 as a nice to have.

The .Net framework's main contenders as far as languages go is VB.Net and C#.Net. Syntactically, VB.Net is very closely related to VB6. The good thing about VB in general is it allows newer or at least under-developed software developers to implement logic in a fairly lightweight way. You don't need to know much of what's under the cover to get going. C#.Net is syntactically very similar to Java although from a corporate perspective is overtaking it by a long way. While greenfield Java projects are still common enough, most companies tend towards the C# end of things.

Most of the corporate projects I have seen with VB.Net are usually long-running conversion projects to come from VB.Net to C#.Net. This is not a very difficult transition, especially compared to transition VB6 to C# or indeed any other more modern language.

Hope that helps.

(edited 8 years ago)