Visual Basic (VB), formerly called Visual Basic .NET (VB.

NET), is an object-oriented computer language that can be viewed as an evolution of Microsoft's Visual Basic (VB) implemented on the Microsoft .NET framework. Its introduction has been controversial, as significant changes were made that broke backward compatibility with older versions and caused a rift within the developer community

Visual Studio 6.0

The next version, version 6.0, was released in June 1998 and is the last version to run on the Windows 9x platform.[43] The version numbers of all of its constituent parts also moved to 6.0, including Visual J++ which jumped from 1.1, and Visual InterDev which was at 1.0. This version was the basis of Microsoft's development system for the next four years, as Microsoft transitioned their development focus to the .NET Framework. Visual Studio 6.0 was the last version to include the COM-based version of Visual Basic; subsequent versions would include the version of the language based on .NET. It was also the last version to include Visual J++, which was removed as part of a settlement with Sun Microsystems that required Microsoft to stop producing programming tools that targeted the Java Virtual Machine. Visual Basic, Visual C++, and Visual FoxPro had separate IDEs, while Visual J++ and Visual InterDev shared a common new environment. This new IDE was designed with extensibility in mind, and would go on (after several internal revisions) to become the common environment for all languages with the release of Visual Studio .NET.[10] Visual Studio 6.0 was also the last version to include Visual FoxPro.

Visual Studio 2005

Visual Studio 2005, codenamed Whidbey (a reference to Whidbey Island in Puget Sound), was released online in October 2005 and hit the stores a few weeks later. Microsoft removed the ".NET" moniker from Visual Studio 2005 (as well as every other product with .NET in its name), but it still primarily targets the .NET Framework, which was upgraded to version 2.0. It is the last version available for Windows 2000. Visual Studio 2005's internal version number is 8.0 while the file format version is 9.0.[46] Microsoft released Service Pack 1 for Visual Studio 2005 on 14 December 2006.[48]. An additional update for Service Pack 1 that offers Windows Vista compatibility was made available on 3 June 2007.[49] Visual Studio 2005 was upgraded to support all the new features introduced in .NET Framework 2.0, including generics and ASP.NET 2.0. The IntelliSense feature in Visual Studio was upgraded for generics and new project types were added to support ASP.NET web services. Visual Studio 2005 also includes a local web server, separate from IIS, that can be used to host ASP.NET applications during development and testing. It also supports all SQL Server 2005 databases. Database designers were upgraded to support the ADO.NET 2.0, which is included with .NET Framework 2.0. C++ also got a similar upgrade with the addition of C++/CLI which is slated to replace the use of Managed C++.[50] Other new features of Visual Studio 2005 include the "Deployment Designer" which allows application designs to be validated before deployments, an improved environment for web publishing when combined with ASP.NET 2.0 and load testing to see application performance under various sorts of user loads. Visual Studio 2005 also added extensive 64-bit support. While the as the manufacturing along with Office 2007. It is included with Office 2007 and is also part of the Visual Studio 2005 SDK. VSTA consists of a customized IDE, based on the Visual Studio 2005 IDE, and a runtime that can be embedded in applications to expose its features via the .NET object model. Office 2007 applications continue to integrate with VBA, except for InfoPath 2007 which integrates with VSTA. The next version of VSTA (version 2.0, based on Visual Studio 2008) will be released in mid-2008. It will be significantly different from the first version, including features such as dynamic programming and support for WPF, WCF, WF, LINQ, and .NET 3.5.

Visual Basic .NET

structured, imperative, objectoriented, declarative 2001 (last revised 2008) Microsoft Corporation dynamic, strong, both safe and unsafe[1], nominative .NET Framework, Mono Microsoft Visual Studio .NET, .NET 2003, 2005, 2008

Paradigm Appeared in Designed by Typing discipline Major implementations Dialects

Visual Basic .NET

structured, imperative, objectoriented, declarative 2001 (last revised 2008) Microsoft Corporation dynamic, strong, both safe and unsafe[1], nominative .NET Framework, Mono Microsoft Visual Studio .NET, .NET 2003, 2005, 2008

Paradigm Appeared in Designed by Typing discipline Major implementations Dialects