Introduction to Visual Basic .Net Environment

You have already got an introduction to the Visual Basic programming language and learned the basic concept of even driven programming in VB.Net. Now let me give you an introduction to the Visual Basic development environment.

You know that Visual Basic programming language is a part of Microsoft’s .Net framework. The .Net framework allows us to create the following type of applications.

  • Windows Form Applications
  • Windows Console Applications
  • Web applications

The .Net applications are developed can be developed using not only one particular programming language. The .Net applications are multiple platform applications which can be developed using the .Net development environment software.

The .Net framework development environment supports the following programming languages.

  • Visual Basic
  • C#
  • Visual C++
  • Javascript
  • COBOL etc.

The IDE stands for Integrated Development Environment, it is the development tools for Visual Basic in .Net framework. Microsoft provides the following Integrated Development Environment to build or develop .Net framework applications.

  • Visual Studio
  • Visual Basic Express
  • Visual Community Express

You have to purchase the first one while the last two are free to download, install and use. You will learn how to download and install the free version of Microsoft Visual Studio on next chapters.