What's new about Visual Basic.Net?

VB.Net is a fully-fledged OO language, supporting encapsulation, inheritance and polymorphism. In contrast to C++ (but like Java) single inheritance is provided. Although VB.Net is sometimes referred to as VB7, the successor to VB6, there are marked changes and very little compatibility. VB.Net is part of a complete suite of tools associated with the .Net architecture. However, it is also a free-standing programming language that just happens to create components that fit within the .Net architecture.

In creating VB.Net, Microsoft have made VB into an elegant and consistent language. Some examples of this are:

· The syntax is cleaned up. For example, keywords End While are used to complete a While statement, rather than Wend

· the VB6 variant data type has gone. Instead the programmer must explicitly use the type of the variable

· parameters are, by default, call by value

· a VB.Net declaration such as Dim x, y, z As Integer means that the variables are all Integer.

· there are no defaults for properties. For example, the programmer must explicitly write TextBox1.Text to describe the Text property of a text box.

· features such as graphics and file handling have been moved from the language itself to the libraries, which now present a coherent and OO interface to the programmer

· a clean exception-handling mechanism has been provided in VB.Net. This contrasts with the clumsy VB6 mechanism

Provided that the appropriate compilation option is selected, VB.Net is a strongly-typed language.

What's the same about VB.Net?

The Integrated Development Environment (IDE) for VB.Net is similar to that of older versions of VB. It displays 4 main windows - the tool box, the code window, the screen designer and a properties window. Like earlier versions of VB, it allows the user to create a user interface by visually selecting GUI components from a tool box. Compilation and linking errors are clearly shown immediately as blue underlines.