Preface

Perhaps no company's fortunes have been more closely tied to those of a single programming language than Microsoft's has been with BASIC. Since Bill Gates and Paul Allen formed Microsoft over 25 years ago to sell their Altair MIPS BASIC interpreter, the corporation's successes have been linked with the BASIC programming language. From MS-DOS to Windows to the .NET Framework, BASIC has played a key role in attracting millions of developers to every major Microsoft platform.

And of all the incarnations of BASIC produced by Microsoft, none has been more successful than Visual Basic. The introduction of Visual Basic played a large part in the phenomenal success of the Windows platform and the Office productivity suite. The language also boasts the most developers ”over 3 million at last counting ”of any computer language, making it the most successful computer programming language ever. Much of the success of Visual Basic has come from the fundamental design tenets of the language: simplicity, straightforwardness, and ease of use. Visual Basic is a language designed for first-time programmers and experienced programmers alike. It makes learning computer programming easy by being approachable and understandable while providing maximum productivity and power suitable for the most advanced kind of applications. It is a versatile language that is an important part of any programmer's toolbox.