Visual Basic

What is Visual Basic?
Visual Basic is a "visual programming" environment for developing Windows (also Web now) applications. Visual Basic makes it possible to develop complicated applications very quickly. The programmer designs windows graphically, drags program elements from the Visual Basic Toolbox and writes basic code for each element. Visual Basic is " event driven" which means that procedures are called automatically when the end user chooses menu items, clicks the mouse, moves objects on the screen, etc.

Why is Visual Basic popular?
Programmers have undergone a major change in many years of programming various machines. For example, what could take days to create an application in other programming languages like C, C++ could be done in hours with Visual Basic. Visual Basic provides many interesting sets of tools to aid us in building exciting applications. Visual Basic provides these tools to make our life far more easier because all the real hard code is already written for us.
Visual Basic is not only a programming language but also a true graphical development environment. This environment allows programmers with little programming experience to quickly develop powerful Windows applications. Visual Basic also has the ability to develop programs that can be used as a front-end application to a database system, serving as the user interface which collects user input and displays formatted output in a more appealing and useful form.
Visual Basic is very popular for the ease with which it allows the programmer to create nice looking graphical programs with less coding unlike many other languages that take thousands of lines of programmer keyed code. As the programmer works in the graphical environment much of the program code is automatically generated by the Visual Basic program.

Areas of Use
Using Visual Basic's tools we can quickly translate an abstract idea into a program design that we can actually see on the screen. VB encourages you to experiment, revise, correct, and network your design until the new project meets your requirements. However, most of all, it inspires your imagination and creativity. Visual Basic is ideal for developing applications that run on the Windows operating system. Developing applications with VB can be said to be a 3-step approach:
1) Design the appearance of application
2) Assign property settings to the objects of the program
3) Write the code to direct specific tasks at runtime
Visual Basic is used to develop applications in a number of different areas. Some of them are listed below:
• Accounting
• Business
• Commerce
• Consulting
• Education
• Law
• Marketing and Sales
• Medicine
• Research
• Science
Many of the things that we do with Visual Basic really aren’t very basic. The Visual Basic language is powerful, if you can imagine a programming task, it can be accomplished using Visual Basic.
History of Visual Basic
Microsoft first released Visual Basic in 1987. It was the first visual development tool from Microsoft, and it was to compete with C, C++, Pascal and other well-known programming languages. From the start, Visual Basic wasn't a hit. It wasn't until release 2.0 that people really discovered the potential of the language, and with release 3.0 it had become the fastest-growing programming language on the market.
Below is the order and the approximate year in which a new version of Visual Basic was released:
• 1991, VB1 Debuts
• 1992, VB2 Debuts
• 1993, VB3 Debut
• 1996, VB4 Debuts
• 1997, VB5 Debuts
• 1998, VB6 Debuts
• 2001, VB. NET Debuts

he concept of devices that operate following a pre-defined set of instructions traces back to Greek Mythology, notably Hephaestus and his mechanical servants^[3]. The Antikythera mechanism was a calculator utilizing gears of various sizes and configuration to determine its operation. The earliest known programmable machines (machines whose behavior can be controlled and predicted with a set of instructions) were Al-Jazari's programmable Automata in 1206.^[4] One of Al-Jazari's robots was originally a boat with four automatic musicians that floated on a lake to entertain guests at royal drinking parties. Programming this mechanism's behavior meant placing pegs and cams into a wooden drum at specific locations. These would then bump into little levers that operate a percussion instrument. The output of this device was a small drummer playing various rhythms and drum patterns.^[5][6] Another sophisticated programmable machine by Al-Jazari was the castle clock, notable for its concept of variables which the operator could manipulate as necessary (i.e. the length of day and night). The Jacquard Loom, which Joseph Marie Jacquard developed in 1801, uses a series of pasteboard cards with holes punched in them. The hole pattern represented the pattern that the loom had to follow in weaving cloth. The loom could produce entirely different weaves using different sets of cards. Charles Babbage adopted the use of punched cards around 1830 to control his Analytical Engine. The synthesis of numerical calculation, predetermined operation and output, along with a way to organize and input instructions in a manner relatively easy for humans to conceive and produce, led to the modern development of computer programming.

Development of computer programming accelerated through the Industrial Revolution. The punch card innovation was later refined by Herman Hollerith who, in 1896 founded the Tabulating Machine Company (which became IBM). He invented the Hollerith punched card, the card reader, and the key punch machine. These inventions were the foundation of the modern information processing industry. The addition of a plug-board to his 1906 Type I Tabulator allowed it to do different jobs without having to be physically rebuilt. By the late 1940s there were a variety of plug-board programmable machines, called unit record equipment, to perform data processing tasks (card reading). Early computer programmers used plug-boards for the variety of complex calculations requested of the newly invented machines.

info :http://en.wikipedia.org