18-Apr-2005

 Javier Gutiérrez Chamorro (Guti) in  Bitácora de Guti claims that the Visual Basic that has just appeared with .NET is a significant departure from the old version of the BASIC language. In the first place, Visual Basic .NET is completely object orientated. Here are some other significant differences.

• BASIC has never had the operators ++ and --
• In BASIC, the variables were never typed
• It was always possible to modify variable names with type modifiers (%, #, !, $, ...)
• BASIC used to accept line numbers

Visual Basic .NET has now become a sophisticated language, leaving a hole for a new simple language, a tool that is more suited for learning and for developing simple tools.

[Note: How much can a language be changed before it becomes a new language? I always considered Visual Basic significantly different to make it not BASIC. There are and have always been other languages, more or less similar to BASIC that serve for the learner and for developing simple tools; but not from Microsoft.]

Visual Studio .NET Beta 2

Zephryn Xirdal writing in  Nación .NET reports on Microsoft's announcement of the release of beta 2 of the Visual Studio suite. The most interesting is that  Express versions of the tools have appeared. In addition, Microsoft are publishing a new web site, Coding4fun. This site is targeted at hobbyists using Express and not the professional development community and help will be available via the Microsoft news groups. Zephryn says that he has tried out the new Express versions and says that they are a delight to use and very functional, except for the presence of bugs, of course. He wonders if Microsoft are trying to delay the inevitable by introducing new tools and the promise of support to the free software community.