So just what IS VB.net?

[Nick Vittum]

I tried reading about it elsewhere on the web, and came away feeling like I knew less than before I read up on it. I ask for a practical reason: I'm wondering if there is a way that I could build small, fun but not especially important apps—like the one I was playing with here—but without all the power, and memory usage of Excel or Access behind it. Just little stand-alones.

I did some playing with Rainmeter a while back, and I may go back to it, but my underlying goal is not to try to learn, or half-learn, yet another language, but rather to improve my understanding of VBA and have some creative fun doing it.

Is this what VB.net can be used for? And if not, is there another way? Or is it better just to keep focused on my Excel projects?

[HansV]

VBA, the programming language in Word, Excel, Access etc. is based on VB6, a programming environment from the 1990s.
Early in this century, Microsoft introduced a successor, originally called VB.NET, now Visual Basic (.NET). It's syntax has similarities to VBA, but also to the C group of languages.
Like VB6, Visual Basic (.NET) can be used to develop stand-alone applications (.exe). (You have to take that with a grain of salt - in order to run such an application, the user must have installed the appropriate .NET runtime library)

If you want to create a stand-alone application instead of one that can only run within Excel (or Word or...), Visual Basic (.NET) would be a good programming environment. It is part of Visual Studio Community (Free). See https://visualstudio.microsoft.com/vs/express/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Nick Vittum]

Visual Basic (.NET) can be used to develop stand-alone applications (.exe). (You have to take that with a grain of salt - in order to run such an application, the user must have installed the appropriate .NET runtime library)

So, then, a few more questions: Am I reading you correctly, that I could build stand-alones for my own enjoyment, but that I couldn't share them with others? (unless they also installed the .NET runtime library?) (and in the end, is that just another program, running behind the app you're creating?)

And would the resulting app have a smaller footprint than something created in Excel or Access?

And most importantly, would learning this help me get better at using VBA? Or would it just confuse the issue?

[HansV]

1) You can distribute an application created with Visual Basic .NET to others; I think they will be prompted to install the required runtime library if they don't have it yet.
2) A .NET application will probably be larger than a simple workbook with a few modules and userforms, but with today's hard disks, that doesn't really matter.
3) Since the Visual Basic in .NET has a slightly different syntax than VBA, learning it will not necessarily help learning VBA.

[Nick Vittum]

Okay, thanks. I'd probably be better off to set that idea to one side for the moment, then.

[Doc.AElstein]

I don’t think I will ever get it clear in my head what all the different Visual Basic variations are. … I tried a few times.

I had a long break from anything technical. When I “left”, I had been in a technical research environment, but we had no real computer department. I got quite good at controlling lots of very expensive test equipment via HP Basic.
When I woke up almost 10 year ago I asked at the local college for the best programming refresher course to get up to date. They only had one:
Visual Basic 2010. – So that is another variation , not directly mentioned by Hans, but somehow wrapped up in .Net ,… I think VB 2010, like VB 2008 is part of .Net, VB6 isn’t. ….I am not sure.. I get a headache every time I try to understand how it relates to all the other Visual basic things. .

( The college did , and still do teach Excel 2010. Its one of their most popular courses. They never got enough people to run their planned VBA courses)
I had to then get to grips with the concept of Object Orientated Programming. My first impression of OOP in Visiual Basic 2010, in the Forms part of Visual Basic 2010, was that it was coding hidden behind buttons and things in a window box. That coding seemed to be Basic used in a peculiar way. They concentrated on teaching us the Form part of Visial Basic 2010.
The end result of that course is that I still have some small square boxes on a couple of my computers desktop, that when I double click on them, they do things…… like a stand-alone application - That sounds similar to what Hans was talking about …”… stand-alone applications…”
I never took that Visual basic 2010 any further, and self taught myself first Excel and then VBA instead. I think I probably just did that because the chap who sold me my first Laptop talked me into buying an Office 2010 DVD. A few days later I went back and asked him what I should do with it, as no music came out when I put it in my CD player.

What I learnt on that Visual Basic 2010 course looks very similar to the bit of what I have leant more recently about user forms in Excel . Unfortunately I did not realise that until much later. If I had , I might have started learning UserForms in Excel a bit ealier.

In short, very approximately, and a long way I guess from technically correct..
Visual Basic 2010 Forms = Excel UserForms, at least from the point of view of learning it , and the coding behind it. .
The difference is what you end up with. A Excel UserForm is stuck in Excel. A Visual Basic 2010 Form "exist on its own".

( The first place I went to learn VBA was mrexcel.com just because it was the first thing google gave me for excel forums. Shortly after I joined I saw a Thread posted by mistake from someone who obviopusly was in the wrong place, asking for a Visual Basic solution, something along the lines of what we had done as an excample on the course. I answered it very well. That upset some Moderators there and put them off me right from the start. At that point I thought it was all the same Visual Basic stuff. )

I never had any issues with not having the necessary .Net stuff on my older computers. It always has seemed to be there, and got updated automatically. ( Only more recently I had to download and install some .Net stuff on some newer computers to get a VPN app to work as it should. But like Hans suggested, I was usually prompted to install it, when something found it needed it but didn't have it). I would take a guess, that the VPN app might have been written / developed in .... erm Visual Basic ...erm 2013 erm .... I mean .Net Visual Basic.. ... er ...

[HansV]

Microsoft numbers successive versions of VB.NET / Visual Basic .NET with the year, just like it does with Microsoft Office. So we've had versions 2002, 2003, 2005, etc., up to the current version 2019. There have been new features, of course, and the interface of the IDE (the equivalent of the Visual Basic Editor) has changed over the years, but the syntax hasn't fundamentally changed.
See Visual Basic .NET for an overview.

[Doc.AElstein]

I think I will continue to read here and there different things , sometimes contradicting about the whole story…. I am sure I looked at that same link , or a very similar one a few years back and it was different. There was even a short sentence where they said the experts disagreed themselves what Visual basic version was to do with what.
I have seen articles that need a few years to read thoroughly , if you follow all the links it sends you to, which sometimes just takes you in circles and you end up linked back to where you started.

According to that link now, it seems something major happened around 2002, VB6 is was the sort of Visual basic we know in VBA – I know from my own experience that I often get better info when I look for things in VBA if I goggle the thing using VB6 in place of VBA . So that ties up a bit with Hans first post. But I have read things telling me that some major change took place such that Visual basic 2008 was the first real .Net version. I think even the lecturer at the college said something to that effect. He was talking about something to do with how it got compiled.
At some point the Visual basic was changed in a major way that meant the final compiled thing was the same whether it came from Visual basic or a few other languages.
That might some be something to do with Visual Studio as an integrated development Environment. Or on the other hand maybe not, as that has also been around a lot longer than 2008.

I have and have learnt about Visual basic 2008 and Visual basic 2010. I have it on my computers, I open it and have made stand alone things with it. It has a Development Environment thing, something like the VB Editor in VBA. As far as I know I don’t have and have never used Visual Studio.

I know this will annoy a lot of people and we will have to agree to differ…. I don’t think anyone really can explain concisely what all the different Visual basic things are about and how they relate to each other. Explaining how it all fits in to each other seems to be beyond the ability of anyone to do, or rather they can and do, but it looks a bit different every time.

Or it is just all far too confusing and complicated for an idiot like me to understand

[HansV]

Alan, you're not an idiot, but I fear that you're overthinking things.

[Doc.AElstein]

I often think that a lot myself ..

_.__________________


I just came across by coincidence this one, …. .NET, sometimes also referred to as Microsoft .NET, serves as a collective term for several software platforms published by Microsoft that serve the development and execution of application programs, products, frameworks, programming languages and everything related to the above , such as tools and technologies.
The release of the .NET platform was officially announced by Microsoft for the first time in 2000. … The framework was then published as part of Visual Studio .NET in 2002. …
The meaning of each part and technology that .NET includes has changed over time

It is that last bit which is nice to see said from someone, or a number of people who are clearly a lot smarter than me , and who amongst others include senior people at Microsoft. The article I picked this from also referenced several official Microsoft publications.

This Thread does ask for what is VB.Net, not specifically .Net: As Hans said in his first post , a good description of that is the Visual basic programming behind that .Net, which is a bit different to what we would know from VBA, but similar in its general form.

Maybe as Hans suggested in his last comment, its best not to think too much about what these things are about, since they do not have a fixed definition and the definition might be changed as time goes on…
Over the weeks I learnt my Visual Basic 2010, .Net was having a break from having anything particularly to do with Visual Studio, so that was less relevant around that time. Most people did stand alone things in Visual Basic 2008 – 2013. VB.Net was also taking a break, at least as far as being included in any definitions. At that time my Lecturer said we have basically VBA and Visual basic 2010 which are similar but different, - Visual Basic 2010 has to do with .Net stuff… which we are usung via Visual Basic 2010 to make stand alone things.

I don’t know about you Nick, but I think I am a bit wiser after this thread, but I can’t define exactly how, its not something that you can define precisely , like .Net , and VB.net , which is behind it, currently, at least by definition...

VB.Net can approximately be defined as the visual basic type programming language behind .Net.
It has often been defined by that, and it is currently, but not always. Maybe on average it is. Depends who you are, where and when..