Visual Basic [.NET] бағдарламалау тілі және .NET платформасы

Object oriented computer programming language
the modern programming language for NET

Visual Basic (VB), originally called Visual Basic NET (VB. NET), is a multi paradigm, object oriented programming language, implemented on NET, Mono, and the NET Framework. Microsoft launched VB. NET in 2002 as the successor to its original Visual Basic language, the last version of which was Visual Basic 6.0. Although the ". NET" portion of the name was dropped in 2005, this article uses "Visual Basic [. NET]" to refer to all Visual Basic languages released since 2002, in order to distinguish between them and the classic Visual Basic. Along with C# and F#, it is one of the three main languages targeting the NET ecosystem. Microsoft updated its VB language strategy on 6 February 2023, stating that VB is a stable language now and Microsoft will keep maintaining it. Microsoft's integrated development environment (IDE) for developing in Visual Basic is Visual Studio. Most Visual Studio editions are commercial; the only exceptions are Visual Studio Express and Visual Studio Community, which are freeware. In addition, the NET Framework SDK includes a freeware command line compiler called vbc. exe. Mono also includes a command line VB. NET compiler. Visual Basic is often used in conjunction with the Windows Forms GUI library to make desktop apps for Windows. Programming for Windows Forms with Visual Basic involves dragging and dropping controls on a form using a GUI designer and writing corresponding code for each control.

The Windows Forms library is most commonly used to create GUI interfaces in Visual Basic. All visual elements in the Windows Forms class library derive from the Control class. This provides the minimal functionality of a user interface element such as location, size, color, font, text, as well as common events like click and drag/drop. The Control class also has docking support to let a control rearrange its position under its parent. Forms are typically designed in the Visual Studio IDE. In Visual Studio, 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.

Whether Visual Basic NET should be considered as just another version of Visual Basic or a completely different language is a topic of debate. There are new additions to support new features, such as structured exception handling and short circuited expressions. Also, two important data type changes occurred with the move to VB. NET: compared to Visual Basic 6, the Integer data type has been doubled in length from 16 bits to 32 bits, and the Long data type has been doubled in length from 32 bits to 64 bits. This is true for all versions of VB. NET. A 16 bit integer in all versions of VB. NET is now known as a Short. Similarly, the Windows Forms editor is very similar in style and function to the Visual Basic form editor. The things that have changed significantly are the semantics—from those of an object based programming language running on a deterministic, reference counted engine based on COM to a fully object oriented language backed by the NET Framework, which consists of a combination of the Common Language Runtime (a virtual machine using generational garbage collection and a just in time compilation engine) and a far larger class library. The increased breadth of the latter is also a problem that VB developers have to deal with when coming to the language, although this is somewhat addressed by the My feature in Visual Studio 2005. The changes have altered many underlying assumptions about the "right" thing to do with respect to performance and maintainability. Some functions and libraries no longer exist; others are available, but not as efficient as the "native" NET alternatives. Even if they compile, most converted Visual Basic 6 applications will require some level of refactoring to take full advantage of the new language. Documentation is available to cover changes in the syntax, debugging applications, deployment and terminology.

C# and Visual Basic are Microsoft's first languages made to program on the NET Framework (later adding F# and more; others have also added languages). Though C# and Visual Basic are syntactically different, that is where the differences mostly end. Microsoft developed both of these languages to be part of the same NET Framework development platform. They are both developed, managed, and supported by the same language development team at Microsoft. They compile to the same intermediate language (IL), which runs against the same NET Framework runtime libraries. Although there are some differences in the programming constructs, their differences are primarily syntactic and, assuming one avoids the Visual Basic "Compatibility" libraries provided by Microsoft to aid conversion from Visual Basic 6, almost every feature in VB has an equivalent feature in C# and vice versa. Lastly, both languages reference the same Base Classes of the NET Framework to extend their functionality. As a result, with few exceptions, a program written in either language can be run through a simple syntax converter to translate to the other. There are many open source and commercially available products for this task.

Succeeding the classic Visual Basic version 6.0, the first version of Visual Basic NET debuted in 2002. as of 2020, ten versions of Visual Basic NET are released.

The first version, Visual Basic NET, relies on NET Framework 1.0. The most important feature is managed code, which contrasts with the classic Visual Basic.

Visual Basic NET 2003 was released with NET Framework 1.1. New features included support for the NET Compact Framework and a better VB upgrade wizard. Improvements were also made to the performance and reliability of NET IDE (particularly the background compiler) and runtime. In addition, Visual Basic NET 2003 was available in the Visual Studio. NET Academic Edition, distributed to a certain number of scholars from each country without cost.

In April 2010, Microsoft released Visual Basic 2010. Microsoft had planned to use Dynamic Language Runtime (DLR) for that release but shifted to a co evolution strategy between Visual Basic and sister language C# to bring both languages into closer parity with one another. Visual Basic's innate ability to interact dynamically with CLR and COM objects has been enhanced to work with dynamic languages built on the DLR such as IronPython and IronRuby. The Visual Basic compiler was improved to infer line continuation in a set of common contexts, in many cases removing the need for the " " line continuation characters. Also, existing support of inline Functions was complemented with support for inline Subs as well as multi line versions of both Sub and Function lambdas.

Visual Basic 2013 was released alongside NET Framework 4.5.1 with Visual Studio 2013. Can also build NET Framework 4.5.2 applications by installing Developer Pack.

Visual Basic 2015 (code named VB "14.0") was released with Visual Studio 2015. Language features include a new "?." operator to perform inline null checks, and a new string interpolation feature is included to format strings inline.

Visual Basic 2017 (code named VB "15.0") was released with Visual Studio 2017. Extends support for new Visual Basic 15 language features with revision 2017, 15.3, 15.5, 15.8. Introduces new refactorings that allow organizing source code with one action.

Visual Basic 2019 (code named VB "16.0") was released with Visual Studio 2019. It is the first version of Visual Basic focused on NET Core.

The official Visual Basic compiler is written in Visual Basic and is available on GitHub as a part of the NET Compiler Platform. The creation of open source tools for Visual Basic development has been slow compared to C#, although the Mono development platform provides an implementation of Visual Basic specific libraries and a Visual Basic 2005 compatible compiler written in Visual Basic, as well as standard framework libraries such as Windows Forms GUI library. MonoDevelop was an open source alternative IDE. The Gambas environment is also similar but distinct from Visual Basic, as is the Visual FB Editor for FreeBasic.