Visual Basic is actually a third generation event-driven language developed by Microsoft for its Component Object-oriented Modeling programming language first introduced in 1991. Microsoft designed Visual Basic as relatively simple to use and easily learned. This meant that many programmers could quickly learn and create applications, web sites and other interactive programs.
However, over time Microsoft made changes to Visual Basic, which changed its direction and the way it was written. The new coding rules meant that developers who had used the older version of Visual Basic needed to change their code in order to work with the new syntax. These developers were unable to keep up with the changes and thus there was a lot of confusion as to why some code was still working while others weren’t. As a result many programmers stopped using Visual Basic altogether.
When Microsoft announced plans to change the syntax to C++, they realized they needed to develop a new programming language in order to support the new syntax. To make the switch, they decided to remove Visual Basic support from Word, Excel and PowerPoint. They decided to replace it with C++, a programming language developed by Microsoft in conjunction with the Borland corporation. C++ is now the most widely used programming language for creating software.
The problem was that many Visual Basic programmers were not ready to go into C++. They wanted to keep writing Visual Basic code as it had been for many years but they didn’t know if they could do it without breaking their programs or having to rewrite a lot of their existing code. This was not the problem that Microsoft addressed.
Instead of making a big deal out of a switch in programming languages and requiring Visual Basic programmers to get used to a new way of doing things, Microsoft developed an “experiment” called Visual Studio which allowed programmers who used VB to compile their code into C++ code and run their code from Visual Studio. This worked well at first because Visual Studio would compile and install the codes automatically for you, so you didn’t need to worry about having to manually edit your code. and compile your code.
However, as the years went on the popularity of Visual Basic decreased and Microsoft had difficulty attracting developers. This situation continued to worsen when Microsoft began to use the Microsoft Office suite as an application for many of its products. The programs were generally less popular than those developed by other companies, but they still sold. The reason for this was the fact that the software didn’t have the tools necessary to compile and install the code automatically, and since this technology was not available, a lot of software engineers were left out of the loop.
Microsoft decided to release Office 95 as an open source program, allowing everyone to download the code and compile the program. This enabled more people to get involved in C++ development. Because of this the popularity of Visual Basic declined considerably. A lot of people continued to rely on Visual Basic for their programming needs, though, and still today there are a lot of people who write C++ programs for use in Microsoft’s products. Many C++ programmers are still building on the foundations of Visual Basic and continue to develop software and tools for it.