Meaning of VISUAL Basic in VBA

T

Tim Childs

Hi

I was recently running a short course in Excel VBA and one of the <fast
balls> I was bowled was why Visual Basic is called VISUAL Basic i.e. what
does the <Visual> mean?

Thanks, Tim
 
R

Rob Bovey

Tim Childs said:
I was recently running a short course in Excel VBA and one of the <fast
balls> I was bowled was why Visual Basic is called VISUAL Basic i.e. what
does the <Visual> mean?
Click to expand...

Hi Tim,

IIRC it refers to the ability to "visually" create forms by dragging and
dropping controls onto blank templates rather than having to code windows
from scratch.

--
Rob Bovey, MCSE, MCSD, Excel MVP
Application Professionals
http://www.appspro.com/

* Please post all replies to this newsgroup *
* I delete all unsolicited e-mail responses *
 
B

Bernie Deitrick

Tim,

Apparently, it is a bit of a misnomer:
From the computer dictionary at

http://computing-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/visual programming env
ironment

HTH,
Bernie
MS Excel MVP
Writing programs in a language which manipulates visual information or
Click to expand...
supports visual interaction

visual programming language - (VPL) Any programming language that allows the
user to specify a program in a two-(or more)-dimensionsional way.
Conventional textual languages are not considered two-dimensional since the
compiler or interpreter processes them as one-dimensional streams of
characters. A VPL allows programming with visual expressions - spatial
arrangements of textual and graphical symbols.

VPLs may be further classified, according to the type and extent of visual
expression used, into icon-based languages, form-based languages and diagram
languages. Visual programming environments provide graphical or iconic
elements which can be manipulated by the user in an interactive way
according to some specific spatial grammar for program construction.

A visually transformed language is a non-visual language with a superimposed
visual representation. Naturally visual languages have an inherent visual
expression for which there is no obvious textual equivalent.

Visual Basic, Visual C++ and the entire Microsoft Visual family are not,
despite their names, visual programming languages. They are textual
languages which use a graphical GUI builder to make programming interfaces
easier. The user interface portion of the programming environment is visual,
the languages are not. Because of the confusion caused by the multiple
meanings of the term "visual programming", Fred Lakin has proposed the term
"executable graphics" as an alternative to VPL.

Some examples of visual programming languages are Prograph, Pict, Tinkertoy,
Fabrik, CODE 2.0 and Hyperpascal.

visual programming environment - Software which allows the use of visual
expressions (such as graphics, drawings, animation or icons) in the process
of programming. These visual expressions may be used as graphical interfaces
for textual programming languages. They may be used to form the syntax of
new visual programming languages leading to new paradigms such as
programming by demonstration or they may be used in graphical presentations
of the behaviour or structure of a program.
 
T

Tim Childs

Rob/Bernie

Thanks for these explanations

In terms of getting back to my colleagues who attended the course I think I
like the plausibility of Rob's explanation!

THANKS

Tim
 
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