VB was basically the MS response to Borland's Delphi, which had all this but better, plus Pascal was way more powerful and mature language than Basic.
That said, both Delphi and VB (and VC++ to some extent) were IMHO far superior tools for RAD building of GUI apps than any web-oriented tool that I've later seen. In web development we're still in Turbo Pascal and Quick Basic days, we've got good IDEs and helpers but you still have to write everything by hand.
That said, both Delphi and VB (and VC++ to some extent) were IMHO far superior tools for RAD building of GUI apps than any web-oriented tool that I've later seen. In web development we're still in Turbo Pascal and Quick Basic days, we've got good IDEs and helpers but you still have to write everything by hand.