Visual Basic

Posted in Code by Tieson | geeksneversleep.com

Depending on who you ask, VisualBasic.NET (VB.NET) is either the next iteration of VisualBasic 6.0, or is a complete replacement. The conflict arises from certain complaints VB6 programmers have made; namely, that their legacy code is severely broken (won't compile, or executes incorrectly) by changes made to the core of the language. These changes were necessary to implement VB in the .NET environment. First released in 2001 as part of the original offering of Microsoft's new .NET Framework, subsequent versions have addressed some of those complaints...

Advantages

While it pains me to do so, I will admit that VisualBasic.NET (VB.NET) does have some redeeming qualities. First and foremost, VB.NET is much easier to read than most of its contemporaries. For this reason alone, I would recommend it as a starting point for beginning programmers.

Drawbacks?

My biggest beef with VB.NET (and BASIC in general) is that BASIC is a relatively weakly-typed language. What that means is that variable types are allowed to be somewhat ambiguous, and data can be passed between two or more variables that are not necessarily compatible. The main problem with THAT issue is that it is easy to truncate our data; if we take a floating point value from one variable and copy it to a single-precision variable, we have lost every number past the tenths place. Big deal? YES!! 3.1 is most certainly not the same as 3.1417 when you are doing area calculations for circular objects...