Visual Basic

[Steve Morris]

This is a delayed response to a post from last week about Visual Basic
versus other programming languages for web development:

Those interested in using Visual Basic for web applications may wish to
check out the
April 1996 issue of Visual Basic Programmer's Journal (I got my issue in the
mail about 10 days ago so it should be on the store shelves).  The April
issue focuses on web site development and includes articles on the following:

* A comparison of JavaScript and VB Script
* A comparison of web design tools (Java, Javascript, VB Script, HTML
editors, OLE/OCX,  inline plug-ins)
* A look at Microsoft's long-term Internet strategy (servers, ISAPI, VB and
VB Script, OLE/OCX etc.)

Right now Perl is a good language to go with because it is easy to learn and
is extremely well-suited to the type of text processing that goes along with
CGI scripts or scripting solutions for mass conversion of raw text to HTML
format.  C and C++ run much faster and are useful for
processor-intensive CGI applications--but are harder to learn, and text
handling involves a bit more work.  Python is supposed to be good but I'm
not very familiar with it.   One of the knocks against Visual Basic has
always been slow execution speed---but its great for quick and easy GUI
development and modular development.

Visual Basic is interesting in that there is a huge preexisting VB developer
base out there that is just now turning its attention to the Internet.  With
Microsoft throwing massive amounts of resources into Internet development,
Visual Basic is likely to play a rather large role in NT-based server-side
utilities as well as client side browser and agent type applications.  As
for transporting applications across the net, VB Script is apparently being
set up to work on Mac and Unix platforms as well as Microsoft operating
systems--but VB script seems a bit behind JavaScript in development.   I've
actually only dabbled a bit in VB3 and haven't even started moving on to VB4
(released last year)-- so I'm not an expert on this, but it's something I
expect to have to pay a lot of attention to in the near future.  (Right most
of my energy goes into Perl though).

(Note: There's a web site for Visual Basic Programmer's Journal at
http://www.windx.com that might have something about the April issue--but I
think you have to register.)

Original message:

>Hi Folks,
>I would like to know if Visual Basic will help you in your Web
>page development?  I know how to do the html tagging, but not
>the very fancy things.  I have created some pages with images
>in them.  Somebody suggested that visual basic will be a good
>course to consider taking.  Our univeristy does not offer
>that course.  I have to go to another university and pay for it
>by myself.  What do you all think?  Is it worth spending that
>much money for developing and maintaining our pages?
>TIA
>Angelina Joseph
> 
>    Angelina G. Joseph
>    Cataloging Librarian
>    Marquette University Law Library
>    1103 W. Wisconsin Avenue
>    P.O. Box 3137
>    Milwaukee, WI 53201-3137
>    Phone: 414-288-5553
>    Email: josepha at vms.csd.mu.edu
>    Fax: 414-288-5914
>    http://studsys.mscs.mu.edu/~joseph
> 
>
>
>
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Steve Morris, Technical Services Librarian
Harmer E. Davis Transportation Library
Institute of Transportation Studies, U.C. Berkeley
e-mail: smorris at library.berkeley.edu
phone: (510) 642-3604    fax: (510) 642-9180