Hey guys, today I want talk about VB.net as a programming language and some facts you should know about it.
Table of Contents
Introduction to VB
Features.
It is a compiled programming language.
It is Case Insensitive.
It is an object Oriented Programming language
High Support for Recursion
Supports Web Application development
Introduction
VB is a programming language that is part of the .NET framework and it was launched in 2002 by Microsoft as a replacement for the preceding Visual BASIC( Biginners all - Purpose Symbolic Instruction code).
Along with C# it targets the .NET framework. Below are some key things you should know about the language:
It is a compiled programming language.
A compiled language is simply a language that is not executed at runtime. Compiled languages depend on the Compiler to be able to communicate with the target machine.
The Compiler is written in the language of the local machine and acts as the mediator between the language and it's target machine.
When you run your program writen in a compiled language, the Compiler converts your code into the language of the local machine without executing any part of it before eventually sending it for execution.
VB is one such languages. For instance, if write the code below in VB:
2+4
The Compiler will convert the operation into the machine's own "add function" before sending it for execution.
Click To Read My Article About The Differences Between a Compiled and an Interpreted Programming Language.
It is Case Insensitive.
Normally, case insensitivity means being unreactive to either lowercased or uppercased character. It means whether you write in capital letters or small letters, to VB it means the same thing.
For example, if I declare this variable in VB:
Dim Age As Integer
Or if I say:
Dim age As Integer
The two lines of code above are the same. They declare the same variable without looking at the casing.
In fact, in Visual Studio - an Integrated developers environment for writing VB code -, there is auto - correction.
If I declare a variable and call it "Age", and when I want to access it I write " age", VB will automatically correct it for me.
It is an object Oriented Programming language
An object oriented programming language allows a programmer to encapsulate code behind an "Object".
An Object in this case is anything that can be described ( it has properties) and can perform actions ( it has methods ).
I'll try to make it a bit practical. A Person is an object in programming.
A person has a name, height, age, nationality etc, these are the properties of a person. And that makes it possible for the said person to be unique in VB programming language.
Then again, a person can walk, run , cry, sing etc. these are the actions(methods) that a person can perform.
So I can encapsulate all these properties and methods of the person into a Class in VB(we'll discus that in an upcoming Article).
High Support for Recursion
Recursion is the reusability of code in a programming language. The ability to write VB code and reuse it somewhere else without having to rewrite again is really interesting.
This is very easy because of its support for object oriented programming.
I've worked on projects where thousands of lines of code are needed. But because I have done something like that before, I don't write again.
Just go back to my old project, copy my classes and am good to go. Nows its just about implementing the logic.
Supports Web Application development
I have to add this one because when I started learning VB, that was my first question.
VB can be used to build website/webapps using the Asp.NET framework. Asp and the frontend languages like HTML, CSS, and JavaScript handles the frontend and VB will do the Backend magic.
In fact once you you are quite conversant with building windows app in VB language, it is very easy to start handling the web's backbend logic using VB.net.
All right guys that's it for this article.
My name remains Isaiah Ozadhe and I write regularly on Emmason247 about programming. If you have a question, drop it in the comments.
Do have a wonderful day and I hope to have you reading some of my other articles.