Description:
Visual Basic is a hugely popular programming language that is suitable for students and beginners as well as professional development. This is the .NET version, which is significantly different from older variants of Basic. It’s also the Standard edition, which is intended to be introductory. Professional developers should consider Visual Studio .NET 2003, which includes a more advanced version of Visual Basic as well as other languages. The full Visual Studio is needed for features like compiling code into libraries, or targeting the Compact Framework for mobile devices. Even so, this Standard edition is a capable package that includes all you need to build applications for both Windows and the Web. Two things make Visual Basic .NET Standard 2003 easy to learn and use. One is the language itself, which is designed to be closer to natural English than others. The other is the array of tools and wizards that Microsoft provides, including a visual form designer for both Windows and Web projects. The web technology is called ASP.NET, and enables easy creation of web page that query and update databases, although note that a Windows web server running .NET is required. The programming environment is slick, with convenient features like docking and tabbed windows, project wizards, auto-completion and pop-up help in the code editor. The .NET version of Visual Basic benefits from full object-orientation and a rich class library. It also supports advanced features like multi-threading, which is a way of writing code to do background tasks. Whereas Visual Basic 6.0 and earlier version needed a small runtime library, this .NET edition requires the .NET Framework, a runtime engine and class library that manages memory and enforces security. Framework applications perform well, since they are compiled to native code at runtime, but there is an overhead in terms of memory usage and the Framework runtime must be installed. These factors, together with less than perfect code compatibility, have made some Visual Basic developers reluctant to switch. While that’s understandable, the .NET technology is now maturing and this release is probably the right moment to make the move. It’s still important to note the heavy system requirements, and that .NET applications do not run on Windows 95. --Tim Anderson, Amazon.co.uk
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