What is Visual Basic and what are its top alternatives?
Visual Basic is a programming language developed by Microsoft that was popular for building Windows applications. It offers a simple and easy-to-use syntax, making it suitable for beginners to pick up. However, Visual Basic has limitations such as being Windows-centric and lacking support for modern programming paradigms like object-oriented programming. The maintenance and support for Visual Basic applications is also becoming less sustainable as Microsoft shifts its focus towards other development platforms.
- C#: C# is another programming language developed by Microsoft that is similar to Visual Basic but offers more modern features like strong typing, object-oriented programming, and platform independence with .NET Core. Pros: Better support for modern development practices, platform independent with .NET Core. Cons: Steeper learning curve for beginners compared to Visual Basic.
- Python: Python is a popular programming language known for its simplicity, readability, and vast community support. Pros: Easy to learn, versatile for various types of development, rich ecosystem of libraries and frameworks. Cons: Less support for building Windows applications compared to Visual Basic.
- Java: Java is a widely used programming language for building cross-platform applications. Pros: Platform independence, strong community support, rich ecosystem of libraries and tools. Cons: More verbose syntax compared to Visual Basic.
- JavaScript: JavaScript is a versatile language commonly used for building web applications. Pros: Can be used for front-end and back-end development, large community support, constantly evolving with new frameworks and libraries. Cons: Not ideal for desktop application development like Visual Basic.
- C++: C++ is a powerful language for building high-performance applications. Pros: Allows low-level system programming, high performance, large ecosystem of libraries. Cons: Steeper learning curve compared to Visual Basic, more complex syntax.
- Swift: Swift is Apple's programming language for building iOS and macOS applications. Pros: Modern syntax, strong type safety, native performance for Apple platforms. Cons: Limited to Apple ecosystem, not as versatile as Visual Basic.
- Ruby: Ruby is a dynamic and object-oriented programming language known for its simplicity and productivity. Pros: Elegant syntax, focus on developer happiness, rich ecosystem of gems. Cons: Slower performance compared to languages like C++ and C#, less emphasis on performance optimization.
- Kotlin: Kotlin is a modern programming language for building Android applications and works seamlessly with Java. Pros: Concise syntax, null safety features, seamless interoperability with Java. Cons: Less community support compared to Java, not as widely adopted as Visual Basic.
- Go: Go is a language developed by Google known for its simplicity, efficiency, and scalability. Pros: Fast compile times, built-in support for concurrency, great performance. Cons: Lack of generics, smaller ecosystem of libraries compared to languages like Python and Java.
- Rust: Rust is a systems programming language focused on safety, performance, and concurrency. Pros: Strong emphasis on memory safety, no null references, high performance. Cons: Steep learning curve, stricter compiler rules compared to Visual Basic.
Top Alternatives to Visual Basic
- Python
Python is a general purpose programming language created by Guido Van Rossum. Python is most praised for its elegant syntax and readable code, if you are just beginning your programming career python suits you best. ...
- JavaScript
JavaScript is most known as the scripting language for Web pages, but used in many non-browser environments as well such as node.js or Apache CouchDB. It is a prototype-based, multi-paradigm scripting language that is dynamic,and supports object-oriented, imperative, and functional programming styles. ...
- MATLAB
Using MATLAB, you can analyze data, develop algorithms, and create models and applications. The language, tools, and built-in math functions enable you to explore multiple approaches and reach a solution faster than with spreadsheets or traditional programming languages, such as C/C++ or Java. ...
- Visual Studio
Visual Studio is a suite of component-based software development tools and other technologies for building powerful, high-performance applications. ...
- Java
Java is a programming language and computing platform first released by Sun Microsystems in 1995. There are lots of applications and websites that will not work unless you have Java installed, and more are created every day. Java is fast, secure, and reliable. From laptops to datacenters, game consoles to scientific supercomputers, cell phones to the Internet, Java is everywhere! ...
- VBScript
It is an Active Scripting language developed by Microsoft that is modeled on Visual Basic. It allows Microsoft Windows system administrators to generate powerful tools for managing computers with error handling, subroutines, and other advanced programming constructs. ...
- PowerShell
A command-line shell and scripting language built on .NET. Helps system administrators and power-users rapidly automate tasks that manage operating systems (Linux, macOS, and Windows) and processes. ...
- Node.js
Node.js uses an event-driven, non-blocking I/O model that makes it lightweight and efficient, perfect for data-intensive real-time applications that run across distributed devices. ...
Visual Basic alternatives & related posts
Python
- Great libraries1.2K
- Readable code962
- Beautiful code847
- Rapid development788
- Large community690
- Open source438
- Elegant393
- Great community282
- Object oriented272
- Dynamic typing220
- Great standard library77
- Very fast60
- Functional programming55
- Easy to learn49
- Scientific computing45
- Great documentation35
- Productivity29
- Easy to read28
- Matlab alternative28
- Simple is better than complex24
- It's the way I think20
- Imperative19
- Free18
- Very programmer and non-programmer friendly18
- Powerfull language17
- Machine learning support17
- Fast and simple16
- Scripting14
- Explicit is better than implicit12
- Ease of development11
- Clear and easy and powerfull10
- Unlimited power9
- It's lean and fun to code8
- Import antigravity8
- Print "life is short, use python"7
- Python has great libraries for data processing7
- Although practicality beats purity6
- Now is better than never6
- Great for tooling6
- Readability counts6
- Rapid Prototyping6
- I love snakes6
- Flat is better than nested6
- Fast coding and good for competitions6
- There should be one-- and preferably only one --obvious6
- High Documented language6
- Great for analytics5
- Lists, tuples, dictionaries5
- Easy to learn and use4
- Simple and easy to learn4
- Easy to setup and run smooth4
- Web scraping4
- CG industry needs4
- Socially engaged community4
- Complex is better than complicated4
- Multiple Inheritence4
- Beautiful is better than ugly4
- Plotting4
- Many types of collections3
- Flexible and easy3
- It is Very easy , simple and will you be love programmi3
- If the implementation is hard to explain, it's a bad id3
- Special cases aren't special enough to break the rules3
- Pip install everything3
- List comprehensions3
- No cruft3
- Generators3
- Import this3
- If the implementation is easy to explain, it may be a g3
- Can understand easily who are new to programming2
- Batteries included2
- Securit2
- Good for hacking2
- Better outcome2
- Only one way to do it2
- Because of Netflix2
- A-to-Z2
- Should START with this but not STICK with This2
- Powerful language for AI2
- Automation friendly1
- Sexy af1
- Slow1
- Procedural programming1
- Ni0
- Powerful0
- Keep it simple0
- Still divided between python 2 and python 353
- Performance impact28
- Poor syntax for anonymous functions26
- GIL22
- Package management is a mess19
- Too imperative-oriented14
- Hard to understand12
- Dynamic typing12
- Very slow12
- Indentations matter a lot8
- Not everything is expression8
- Incredibly slow7
- Explicit self parameter in methods7
- Requires C functions for dynamic modules6
- Poor DSL capabilities6
- No anonymous functions6
- Fake object-oriented programming5
- Threading5
- The "lisp style" whitespaces5
- Official documentation is unclear.5
- Hard to obfuscate5
- Circular import5
- Lack of Syntax Sugar leads to "the pyramid of doom"4
- The benevolent-dictator-for-life quit4
- Not suitable for autocomplete4
- Meta classes2
- Training wheels (forced indentation)1
related Python posts
How Uber developed the open source, end-to-end distributed tracing Jaeger , now a CNCF project:
Distributed tracing is quickly becoming a must-have component in the tools that organizations use to monitor their complex, microservice-based architectures. At Uber, our open source distributed tracing system Jaeger saw large-scale internal adoption throughout 2016, integrated into hundreds of microservices and now recording thousands of traces every second.
Here is the story of how we got here, from investigating off-the-shelf solutions like Zipkin, to why we switched from pull to push architecture, and how distributed tracing will continue to evolve:
https://eng.uber.com/distributed-tracing/
(GitHub Pages : https://www.jaegertracing.io/, GitHub: https://github.com/jaegertracing/jaeger)
Bindings/Operator: Python Java Node.js Go C++ Kubernetes JavaScript OpenShift C# Apache Spark
Winds 2.0 is an open source Podcast/RSS reader developed by Stream with a core goal to enable a wide range of developers to contribute.
We chose JavaScript because nearly every developer knows or can, at the very least, read JavaScript. With ES6 and Node.js v10.x.x, it’s become a very capable language. Async/Await is powerful and easy to use (Async/Await vs Promises). Babel allows us to experiment with next-generation JavaScript (features that are not in the official JavaScript spec yet). Yarn allows us to consistently install packages quickly (and is filled with tons of new tricks)
We’re using JavaScript for everything – both front and backend. Most of our team is experienced with Go and Python, so Node was not an obvious choice for this app.
Sure... there will be haters who refuse to acknowledge that there is anything remotely positive about JavaScript (there are even rants on Hacker News about Node.js); however, without writing completely in JavaScript, we would not have seen the results we did.
#FrameworksFullStack #Languages
JavaScript
- Can be used on frontend/backend1.7K
- It's everywhere1.5K
- Lots of great frameworks1.2K
- Fast898
- Light weight745
- Flexible425
- You can't get a device today that doesn't run js392
- Non-blocking i/o286
- Ubiquitousness237
- Expressive191
- Extended functionality to web pages55
- Relatively easy language49
- Executed on the client side46
- Relatively fast to the end user30
- Pure Javascript25
- Functional programming21
- Async15
- Full-stack13
- Setup is easy12
- Future Language of The Web12
- Its everywhere12
- Because I love functions11
- JavaScript is the New PHP11
- Like it or not, JS is part of the web standard10
- Expansive community9
- Everyone use it9
- Can be used in backend, frontend and DB9
- Easy9
- Most Popular Language in the World8
- Powerful8
- Can be used both as frontend and backend as well8
- For the good parts8
- No need to use PHP8
- Easy to hire developers8
- Agile, packages simple to use7
- Love-hate relationship7
- Photoshop has 3 JS runtimes built in7
- Evolution of C7
- It's fun7
- Hard not to use7
- Versitile7
- Its fun and fast7
- Nice7
- Popularized Class-Less Architecture & Lambdas7
- Supports lambdas and closures7
- It let's me use Babel & Typescript6
- Can be used on frontend/backend/Mobile/create PRO Ui6
- 1.6K Can be used on frontend/backend6
- Client side JS uses the visitors CPU to save Server Res6
- Easy to make something6
- Clojurescript5
- Promise relationship5
- Stockholm Syndrome5
- Function expressions are useful for callbacks5
- Scope manipulation5
- Everywhere5
- Client processing5
- What to add5
- Because it is so simple and lightweight4
- Only Programming language on browser4
- Test1
- Hard to learn1
- Test21
- Not the best1
- Easy to understand1
- Subskill #41
- Easy to learn1
- Hard 彤0
- A constant moving target, too much churn22
- Horribly inconsistent20
- Javascript is the New PHP15
- No ability to monitor memory utilitization9
- Shows Zero output in case of ANY error8
- Thinks strange results are better than errors7
- Can be ugly6
- No GitHub3
- Slow2
- HORRIBLE DOCUMENTS, faulty code, repo has bugs0
related JavaScript posts
Oof. I have truly hated JavaScript for a long time. Like, for over twenty years now. Like, since the Clinton administration. It's always been a nightmare to deal with all of the aspects of that silly language.
But wowza, things have changed. Tooling is just way, way better. I'm primarily web-oriented, and using React and Apollo together the past few years really opened my eyes to building rich apps. And I deeply apologize for using the phrase rich apps; I don't think I've ever said such Enterprisey words before.
But yeah, things are different now. I still love Rails, and still use it for a lot of apps I build. But it's that silly rich apps phrase that's the problem. Users have way more comprehensive expectations than they did even five years ago, and the JS community does a good job at building tools and tech that tackle the problems of making heavy, complicated UI and frontend work.
Obviously there's a lot of things happening here, so just saying "JavaScript isn't terrible" might encompass a huge amount of libraries and frameworks. But if you're like me, yeah, give things another shot- I'm somehow not hating on JavaScript anymore and... gulp... I kinda love it.
How Uber developed the open source, end-to-end distributed tracing Jaeger , now a CNCF project:
Distributed tracing is quickly becoming a must-have component in the tools that organizations use to monitor their complex, microservice-based architectures. At Uber, our open source distributed tracing system Jaeger saw large-scale internal adoption throughout 2016, integrated into hundreds of microservices and now recording thousands of traces every second.
Here is the story of how we got here, from investigating off-the-shelf solutions like Zipkin, to why we switched from pull to push architecture, and how distributed tracing will continue to evolve:
https://eng.uber.com/distributed-tracing/
(GitHub Pages : https://www.jaegertracing.io/, GitHub: https://github.com/jaegertracing/jaeger)
Bindings/Operator: Python Java Node.js Go C++ Kubernetes JavaScript OpenShift C# Apache Spark
MATLAB
- Simulink20
- Model based software development5
- Functions, statements, plots, directory navigation easy5
- S-Functions3
- REPL2
- Simple variabel control1
- Solve invertible matrix1
- Parameter-value pairs syntax to pass arguments clunky2
- Doesn't allow unpacking tuples/arguments lists with *2
- Does not support named function arguments2
related MATLAB posts
Visual Studio
- Intellisense, ui305
- Complete ide and debugger244
- Plug-ins165
- Integrated104
- Documentation93
- Fast37
- Node tools for visual studio (ntvs)35
- Free Community edition33
- Simple24
- Bug free17
- Made by Microsoft8
- Full free community version6
- JetBrains plugins (ReSharper etc.) work sufficiently OK5
- Productivity Power Tools3
- Vim mode2
- VIM integration2
- I develop UWP apps and Intellisense is super useful1
- Cross platform development1
- The Power and Easiness to Do anything in any.. language1
- Available for Mac and Windows1
- Bulky16
- Made by Microsoft14
- Sometimes you need to restart to finish an update6
- Too much size for disk3
- Only avalible on Windows3
related Visual Studio posts
I use TypeScript because it greatly simplify my refactoring efforts. I regularly re-validate my assumption about application architecture, and strictness of types allow me write make changes safely using just Visual Studio tooling. Integration with existing JavaScript libraries very simple and fast. If I have no time, I could just use any
type as output of JS module. When I have more time, I could just submit PR to DefinitelyTyped and it would be quickly accepted. Overall it gives less ambiguity for my code.
.NET Core is #free, #cross-platform, and #opensource. A developer platform for building all types of apps ( #web apps #mobile #games #machinelearning #AI and #Desktop ).
Developers have chosen .NET for:
Productive: Combined with the extensive class libraries, common APIs, multi-language support, and the powerful tooling provided by the Visual Studio family ( Visual Studio and Visual Studio Code ), .NET is the most productive platform for developers.
Any app: From mobile applications running on iOS, Android and Windows, to Enterprise server applications running on Windows Server and Linux, or high-scale microservices running in the cloud, .NET provides a solution for you.
Performance: .NET is fast. Really fast! The popular TechEmpower benchmark compares web application frameworks with tasks like JSON serialization, database access, and server side template rendering - .NET performs faster than any other popular framework.
Java
- Great libraries603
- Widely used446
- Excellent tooling401
- Huge amount of documentation available396
- Large pool of developers available334
- Open source208
- Excellent performance203
- Great development158
- Used for android150
- Vast array of 3rd party libraries148
- Compiled Language60
- Used for Web52
- Managed memory46
- High Performance46
- Native threads45
- Statically typed43
- Easy to read35
- Great Community33
- Reliable platform29
- Sturdy garbage collection24
- JVM compatibility24
- Cross Platform Enterprise Integration22
- Good amount of APIs20
- Universal platform20
- Great Support18
- Great ecosystem14
- Backward compatible11
- Lots of boilerplate11
- Everywhere10
- Excellent SDK - JDK9
- Cross-platform7
- It's Java7
- Static typing7
- Portability6
- Mature language thus stable systems6
- Better than Ruby6
- Long term language6
- Used for Android development5
- Clojure5
- Vast Collections Library5
- Best martial for design4
- Most developers favorite4
- Old tech4
- Testable3
- History3
- Javadoc3
- Stable platform, which many new languages depend on3
- Great Structure3
- Faster than python2
- Type Safe2
- Job0
- Verbosity33
- NullpointerException27
- Nightmare to Write17
- Overcomplexity is praised in community culture16
- Boiler plate code12
- Classpath hell prior to Java 98
- No REPL6
- No property4
- Code are too long3
- Non-intuitive generic implementation2
- There is not optional parameter2
- Floating-point errors2
- Java's too statically, stronglly, and strictly typed1
- Returning Wildcard Types1
- Terrbible compared to Python/Batch Perormence1
related Java posts
How Uber developed the open source, end-to-end distributed tracing Jaeger , now a CNCF project:
Distributed tracing is quickly becoming a must-have component in the tools that organizations use to monitor their complex, microservice-based architectures. At Uber, our open source distributed tracing system Jaeger saw large-scale internal adoption throughout 2016, integrated into hundreds of microservices and now recording thousands of traces every second.
Here is the story of how we got here, from investigating off-the-shelf solutions like Zipkin, to why we switched from pull to push architecture, and how distributed tracing will continue to evolve:
https://eng.uber.com/distributed-tracing/
(GitHub Pages : https://www.jaegertracing.io/, GitHub: https://github.com/jaegertracing/jaeger)
Bindings/Operator: Python Java Node.js Go C++ Kubernetes JavaScript OpenShift C# Apache Spark
When you think about test automation, it’s crucial to make it everyone’s responsibility (not just QA Engineers'). We started with Selenium and Java, but with our platform revolving around Ruby, Elixir and JavaScript, QA Engineers were left alone to automate tests. Cypress was the answer, as we could switch to JS and simply involve more people from day one. There's a downside too, as it meant testing on Chrome only, but that was "good enough" for us + if really needed we can always cover some specific cases in a different way.
related VBScript posts
related PowerShell posts
I currently work helpdesk and have been for about 6 years. I am looking to become more valuable, and I can't decide what route to take? Python is of interest, and so is PowerShell. What are some recommendations? Maybe something that would benefit a helpdesk position or even get into a network administrator.
Objective: I am trying to build a custom service that will create VMs in Azure, based on inputs taken from a web interface. I want the backend code that interacts with Azure to be PowerShell.
Ask: Hoping to find help with deciding the simplest architecture of tools to achieve this.
What I have so far with my Limited Knowledge: I am new to Azure and Jenkins. I arrived at Jenkins coz it can run PowerShell and has API that can be called to trigger a job. Although integrating with it over the web seems problematic since its on-prem network. I hear it is possible using the VPN. For the Web, I hope to use Azure Web App with Python/Node.js that I can manage to make API calls to Jenkins.
Is there a better way? I just need help getting the right directions; I will walk the way.
Node.js
- Npm1.4K
- Javascript1.3K
- Great libraries1.1K
- High-performance1K
- Open source805
- Great for apis486
- Asynchronous477
- Great community423
- Great for realtime apps390
- Great for command line utilities296
- Websockets84
- Node Modules83
- Uber Simple69
- Great modularity59
- Allows us to reuse code in the frontend58
- Easy to start42
- Great for Data Streaming35
- Realtime32
- Awesome28
- Non blocking IO25
- Can be used as a proxy18
- High performance, open source, scalable17
- Non-blocking and modular16
- Easy and Fun15
- Easy and powerful14
- Future of BackEnd13
- Same lang as AngularJS13
- Fullstack12
- Fast11
- Scalability10
- Cross platform10
- Simple9
- Mean Stack8
- Great for webapps7
- Easy concurrency7
- Typescript6
- Fast, simple code and async6
- React6
- Friendly6
- Control everything5
- Its amazingly fast and scalable5
- Easy to use and fast and goes well with JSONdb's5
- Scalable5
- Great speed5
- Fast development5
- It's fast4
- Easy to use4
- Isomorphic coolness4
- Great community3
- Not Python3
- Sooper easy for the Backend connectivity3
- TypeScript Support3
- Blazing fast3
- Performant and fast prototyping3
- Easy to learn3
- Easy3
- Scales, fast, simple, great community, npm, express3
- One language, end-to-end3
- Less boilerplate code3
- Npm i ape-updating2
- Event Driven2
- Lovely2
- Creat for apis1
- Node0
- Bound to a single CPU46
- New framework every day45
- Lots of terrible examples on the internet40
- Asynchronous programming is the worst33
- Callback24
- Javascript19
- Dependency hell11
- Dependency based on GitHub11
- Low computational power10
- Very very Slow7
- Can block whole server easily7
- Callback functions may not fire on expected sequence7
- Breaking updates4
- Unstable4
- Unneeded over complication3
- No standard approach3
- Bad transitive dependency management1
- Can't read server session1
related Node.js posts
I just finished the very first version of my new hobby project: #MovieGeeks. It is a minimalist online movie catalog for you to save the movies you want to see and for rating the movies you already saw. This is just the beginning as I am planning to add more features on the lines of sharing and discovery
For the #BackEnd I decided to use Node.js , GraphQL and MongoDB:
Node.js has a huge community so it will always be a safe choice in terms of libraries and finding solutions to problems you may have
GraphQL because I needed to improve my skills with it and because I was never comfortable with the usual REST approach. I believe GraphQL is a better option as it feels more natural to write apis, it improves the development velocity, by definition it fixes the over-fetching and under-fetching problem that is so common on REST apis, and on top of that, the community is getting bigger and bigger.
MongoDB was my choice for the database as I already have a lot of experience working on it and because, despite of some bad reputation it has acquired in the last months, I still believe it is a powerful database for at least a very long list of use cases such as the one I needed for my website
When I joined NYT there was already broad dissatisfaction with the LAMP (Linux Apache HTTP Server MySQL PHP) Stack and the front end framework, in particular. So, I wasn't passing judgment on it. I mean, LAMP's fine, you can do good work in LAMP. It's a little dated at this point, but it's not ... I didn't want to rip it out for its own sake, but everyone else was like, "We don't like this, it's really inflexible." And I remember from being outside the company when that was called MIT FIVE when it had launched. And been observing it from the outside, and I was like, you guys took so long to do that and you did it so carefully, and yet you're not happy with your decisions. Why is that? That was more the impetus. If we're going to do this again, how are we going to do it in a way that we're gonna get a better result?
So we're moving quickly away from LAMP, I would say. So, right now, the new front end is React based and using Apollo. And we've been in a long, protracted, gradual rollout of the core experiences.
React is now talking to GraphQL as a primary API. There's a Node.js back end, to the front end, which is mainly for server-side rendering, as well.
Behind there, the main repository for the GraphQL server is a big table repository, that we call Bodega because it's a convenience store. And that reads off of a Kafka pipeline.