LEARNING WITH VISUAL BASIC 6.

0 TO TELECOMMUNICATION ENGINEERING
Robert T, Murrell, Stephen An executive's guide to information technology, Cambridge University

Abstract : this journal porposes that the development of the computer language BASIC (Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code). BASIC language was created by Professor John Kemeny and Thomas Eugene Kurtz of Dartmouth College in the mid 1960s. [2] The program arranged similar to English used by the programmer to write a simple computer program that serves as a learning the basic concepts of computer programming. I. INTRODUCE March 2008 and the designated successor was Visual Basic .NET (now known simply as Visual Basic). Though Visual Basic 6.0 is no longer officially available there remains a sizable number of developers who still prefer Visual Basic 6.0 over .NET. A dialect of Visual Basic, Visual Basic for Applications (VBA), is used as a macro or scripting language within several Microsoft applications, including Microsoft Office. II. LANGUAGE FEATURES Like the BASIC programming language, Visual Basic was designed to accommodate beginner programmers. Programmers can not only create simple GUI applications, but to also develop complex applications. Programming in VB is a combination of visually arranging components or controls on a form, specifying attributes and actions for those components, and writing additional lines of code for more functionality. Since VB defines default attributes and actions for the components, a programmer can develop a simple program without writing much code . Programs built with earlier versions suffered performance problems, but faster computers and native code compilation has made this less of an issue. Though VB programs can be compiled into native code executables from version 5 on, they still require the presence of around 1 MB of runtime libraries. Runtime libraries are included by default in Windows 2000 and later. Earlier

Visual Basic is a third-generation eventdriven programming language and integrated development environment (IDE) from Microsoft for its COM programming model first released in 1991 Microsoft intends Visual Basic to be relatively easy to learn and use. Visual Basic was derived from BASIC and enables the rapid application development (RAD) of graphical user interface (GUI) applications, access to databases using Data Access Objects, Remote Data Objects, or ActiveX Data Objects, and creation of ActiveX controls and objects. A programmer can create an application using the components provided by the Visual Basic program itself. Programs written in Visual Basic can also use the Windows API, but doing so requires external function declarations. Though the program has received criticism for its perceived faults,[3] version 3 of Visual Basic was a commercial success, and many companies offered third party controls greatly extending its functionality. The final release was version 6 in 1998. Microsoft's extended support ended in

versions of Windows (95/98/NT), require that the runtime libraries be distributed with the executable.

user selects an element, an event handler is called that executes code that the programmer created to perform the action for that list item. Alternatively, a Visual Basic component can have no user interface, and instead provide ActiveX objects to other programs via Component Object Model (COM). This allows for server-side processing or an add-in module. The runtime recovers unused memory using reference counting, which depends on variables passing out of scope or being set to Nothing, avoiding the problem of memory leaks common to other languages. There is a large library of utility objects, and the language provides basic object oriented support. Unlike many other programming languages, Visual Basic is generally not case sensitivethough it transforms keywords into a standard case configuration and forces the case of variable names to conform to the case of the entry in the symbol table (PRESENT CONTINOUS). String comparisons are case sensitive by default. III. CHARACTERISTICS

An empty form in Visual Basic 6. Forms are created using drag-and-drop techniques. A tool is used to place controls (e.g., text boxes, buttons, etc.) on the form (window. Controls have attributes and event handlers associated with them. Default values are provided when the control is created, but may be changed by the programmer. Many attribute values can be modified during run time based on user actions or changes in the environment, providing a dynamic application. For example, code can be inserted into the form resize event handler to reposition a control so that it remains centered on the form, expands to fill up the form, etc. By inserting code into the event handler for a keypress in a text box, the program can automatically translate the case of the text being entered, or even prevent certain characters from being inserted. Visual Basic can create executables (EXE files), ActiveX controls, or DLL files, but is primarily used to develop Windows applications and to interface database systems. Dialog boxes with less functionality can be used to provide popup capabilities. Controls provide the basic functionality of the application, while programmers can insert additional logic within the appropriate event handlers. For example, a drop-down combination box automatically displays a list. When the

The code windows in Visual Basic, showing a Function using the If, Then, Else and Dim statements. The following Visual Basic traits differ from C-derived languages:

Statements tend to terminate with keywords, such as "End If", instead of using "{}"s to group statements. Multiple variable assignment is not possible. A = B = C does not imply that the values of A, B and C are equal. The boolean result of "Is B = C?" is stored in A. The result stored in A would therefore be either false or true. Boolean constant True has numeric value 1.[5] This is because the Boolean data type is stored as a 16bit signed integer. In this construct 1 evaluates to 16 binary 1s (the Boolean value True), and 0 as 16 0s (the Boolean value False). This is apparent when performing a Not operation on a 16 bit signed integer value 0, which returns the integer value 1, in other words True = Not False. This inherent functionality becomes especially useful when performing logical operations on the individual bits of an integer such as And, Or, Xor and Not.[6] This definition of True is also consistent with BASIC since the early 1970s Microsoft BASIC implementation and is also related to the characteristics of CPU instructions at the time. Logical and bitwise operators are unified. This is unlike some Cderived languages (such as Perl), which have separate logical and bitwise operators. This again is a traditional feature of BASIC. Variable array base. Arrays are declared by specifying the upper and lower bounds in a way similar to Pascal and Fortran. It is also possible to use the Option Base statement to set the default lower bound. Use of the Option Base statement can lead to confusion when reading Visual Basic code and is best avoided by always explicitly specifying the lower bound of the array. This lower

bound is not limited to 0 or 1, because it can also be set by declaration. In this way, both the lower and upper bounds are programmable. In more subscriptlimited languages, the lower bound of the array is not variable. This uncommon trait does exist in Visual Basic .NET but not in VBScript. OPTION BASE was introduced by ANSI, with the standard for ANSI Minimal BASIC in the late 1970s.

Relatively strong integration with the Windows operating system and the Component Object Model. The native types for strings and arrays are the dedicated COM types, BSTR and SAFEARRAY. And others.

IV. HISTORY

Alan Cooper created the drag and drop design for the user interface of Visual Basic. VB 1.0 was introduced in 1991. The drag and drop design for creating the user interface is derived from a prototype form generator developed by Alan Cooper and his company called Tripod. Microsoft contracted with Cooper and his associates

to develop Tripod into a programmable form system for Windows 3.0, under the code name Ruby (no relation to the Ruby programming language). Tripod did not include a programming language at all. Microsoft decided to combine Ruby with the Basic language to create Visual Basic.

V. TIMELINE

Project 'basic Thunder' was initiated in 1990.[citation needed ] Visual Basic 1.0 (May 1991) was released for Windows at the Comdex/Windows World trade show in Atlanta, Georgia. Visual Basic 1.0 for DOS was released in September 1992. The language itself was not quite compatible with Visual Basic for Windows, as it was actually the next version of Microsoft's DOSbased BASIC compilers, QuickBASIC and BASIC Professional Development System. The interface used a Text user interface, using extended ASCII characters to simulate the appearance of a GUI.

Visual Basic 2.0 was released in November 1992. The programming environment was easier to use, and its speed was improved. Notably, forms became instantiable objects, thus laying the foundational

concepts of class modules as were later offered in VB4. Visual Basic 3.0 was released in the summer of 1993 and came in Standard and Professional versions. VB3 included version 1.1 of the Microsoft Jet Database Engine that could read and write Jet (or Access) 1.x databases. Visual Basic 4.0 (August 1995) was the first version that could create 32-bit as well as 16-bit Windows programs. It has three editions; Standard, Professional, and Enterprise. It also introduced the ability to write non-GUI classes in Visual Basic. Incompatibilities between different releases of VB4 caused installation and operation problems. While previous versions of Visual Basic had used VBX controls, Visual Basic now used OLE controls (with files names ending in .OCX) instead. These were later to be named ActiveX controls. With version 5.0 (February 1997), Microsoft released Visual Basic exclusively for 32-bit versions of Windows. Programmers who preferred to write 16-bit programs were able to import programs written in Visual Basic 4.0 to Visual Basic 5.0, and Visual Basic 5.0 programs can easily be converted with Visual Basic 4.0. Visual Basic 5.0 also introduced the ability to create custom user controls, as well as the ability to compile to native Windows executable code, speeding up calculation-intensive code execution. A free, downloadable Control Creation Edition was also released for creation of ActiveX controls. It was also used as an introductory form of Visual Basic: a regular .exe project could be created and run in the IDE, but not compiled.

VI. CONCLUSION So, Visual Basic is a third-generation event-driven programming language and integrated development environment (IDE) from Microsoft for its COM programming model first released in 1991. Microsoft intends Visual Basic to be relatively easy to learn and use.[1][2] Visual Basic was derived from BASIC and enables the rapid application development (RAD) of graphical user interface (GUI) applications, access to databases using Data Access Objects, Remote Data Objects, or ActiveX Data Objects, and creation of ActiveX controls and objects. REFERENCES 1. Jump up ^ Root, Randal; Romero Sweeney, Mary (2006). A tester's guide to .NET programming. Apress. p. 3. ISBN 978-1-59059600-5. "You can choose a language based on how easy it is to learn. For beginners, Visual Basic is a good choice. [~snip] A big advantage of Visual Basic is that it is a popular language because it is easy to learn." 2. Jump up ^ In most languages, True is mapped to a non zero numeric value, often 1 or -1. 3. Jump up ^ "Microsoft Basic Logical Expression Evaluation". Vb.mvps.org. Retrieved 2009-0616. 4. Jump up ^ http://support.microsoft.com/kb/19 4983 5. Jump up ^ "The Birth of Visual Basic". Rian " Petot " Danao I <3 19 6. Jump up ^ "Compatibility Between the 32-bit and 64-bit Versions of Office 2010". Microsoft Corporation. Retrieved 16 July 2012. 7. Jump up ^ Piquet, Lori (2002-0220). "Abandoning the Fantasy of

VB Migration Wizardry". DevX.com . Jupitermedia. Retrieved 2007-05-17. 8. Jump up ^ Alex Homer, Dave Sussman, Rob Howard, Brian Francis, Karli Watson, Richard Anderson (2004). Professional ASP.NET 1.1. Wiley. p. 71. ISBN 0-7645-5890-0. Retrieved 2008-10-08. 9. Jump up ^ Marc D'Aoust (December 2000). "Avoid Writing Tedious, Boring Code". Microsoft. Retrieved 2008-11-10. 10. Jump up ^ Andrew Troelsen (2008). Pro VB 2008 and the .NET 3.5 Platform: The expert's voice in .NET. Apress. p. 5. ISBN 1-59059822-9. 11. Jump up ^ Platt, David (2012-0601). "Don't Get Me Started The Silent Majority: Why Visual Basic 6 Still Thrives". MSDN Magazine. Retrieved 2012-06-09.