What is Visual Basic?

VISUAL BASIC is a high level programming language which  evolved from the earlier DOS version called BASIC. BASIC means Beginners' All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code. It is a relatively easy programming language to learn. The code looks a lot  like English Language. Different software companies produced different versions of BASIC, such as Microsoft QBASIC, QUICKBASIC, GWBASIC ,IBM BASICA and so on. However, people prefer to use Microsoft Visual Basic today, as it is a well developed programming language and supporting resources are available everywhere. Now, there are many versions of VB exist in the market, the most popular one and still widely used by many VB programmers is none other than Visual Basic 6 . We also have VB.net, Visual Basic 2005, Visual Basic 2008 and the latest Visual Basic 2010 Both Vb2008 and VB2010 are fully object oriented programming (OOP) languages.

VISUAL BASIC is a VISUAL and  Event-driven Programming Language. These are the main divergence from the old BASIC. In BASIC, programming is done in a text-only environment and the program is executed sequentially. In VB6, programming is done in a graphical environment. In the old BASIC, you have to write program code for each graphical object you wish to display it on screen, including its position and its color. However, In VB6 , you just need to drag and drop any graphical object anywhere on the form, and you can change its properties  using the properties window. 

In addition, Visual Basic 6 is Event-driven because we need to write code in order to perform some tasks in response to certain events. The events usually comprises but not limited to the user's inputs. Some of the events are load, click, double click, drag and drop, pressing the keys and more. We will learn more about events in later lessons. Therefore, a VB6 Program is made up of many subprograms, each has its own program code, and each can be executed independently and at the same time each can be linked together in one way or another.