CHAPTER 2 2.

1 LITERATURE REVIEW

In the analysis of the Examination management System we refer to a desktop / web application which is developed using visual basic 6 as the front end and MS access database as the back end. Therefore it is necessary to talk about these programming languages briefly. 2.2 VISUAL BASIC

Visual basic is a programming language and environment developed by Microsoft. Based on the BASIC language, Visual Basic was one of the first products to provide a graphical programming environment and a paint metaphor for developing user interfaces. Instead of worrying about syntax details, the Visual basic programmer can add a substantial amount of code simply by dragging and dropping controls, such as buttons and dialog boxes, and then defining their appearance and behavior. Visual Basic, also referred to as "VB," is designed to make software development easy and efficient, while still being powerful enough to create advanced programs. For example, the Visual Basic language is designed to be "human readable," which means the source code can be understood without requiring lots of comments. The Visual Basic program also includes features like "IntelliSense" and "Code Snippets," which automatically generate code for visual objects added by the programmer. Another feature, called "AutoCorrect," can debug the code while the program is running. Programs created with Visual Basic can be designed to run on Windows, on the Web, within Office applications, or on mobile devices. Visual Studio, the most comprehensive VB development environment, or IDE, can be used to create programs for all these mediums. Visual Studio .NET provides development tools to create programs based on the .NET framework, such as ASP.NET applications, which are often deployed on the Web. Finally, Visual Basic is available as a streamlined application that is used primarily by beginning developers and for educational purposes. Visual Basic is designed to be relatively easy to learn and use. Visual Basic is a third-generation event-driven programming language and integrated development environment (IDE) from Microsoft for its COM programming model first released in 1991. Visual Basic was derived from BASIC and enables the Rapid application development (RAD) of graphical user interface (GUI) applications, access to databases using Data Access Objects, Remote Data Objects, or ActiveX Data Objects, and creation of ActiveX controls and objects. The scripting language VBScript is a subset of Visual Basic.

Visual Basic, however, was created by Microsoft in 1991. The main reason for the first version of Visual Basic was to make it a lot faster and easier to write programs for the new, graphical Windows operating system. Before VB, Windows programs had to be written in C++. They were expensive and difficult to write and usually had a lot of bugs in them. VB changed all that. There have been nine versions of Visual Basic up to the current version. The first six versions were all called Visual Basic. But in 2002, Microsoft introduced Visual Basic .NET 1.0, a completely redesigned and rewritten version that was a key part of a whole computer software revolution at Microsoft. The first six versions were all "backward compatible" which means that later versions of VB could handle programs written with an earlier version. Because the .NET architecture was such a radical change, any programs written in Visual Basic 6 or earlier had to be rewritten before they could be used with .NET. It was a controversial move at the time, but VB.NET has now proven to be a great programming advance. One of the biggest changes in VB.NET was the use of an object oriented software architecture (OOP). VB6 was 'mostly' OOP, but VB.NET is totally OOP. The rules of object orientation are recognized as a superior design. Visual Basic had to change or it would have become obsolete. A programmer can create an application using the components provided by the Visual Basic program itself. Programs written in Visual Basic can also use the Windows API, but doing so requires external function declarations. Though the program has received criticism for its perceived faults, version 3 of Visual Basic was a runaway commercial success, and many companies offered third party controls greatly extending its functionality. The final release was version 6 in 1998. Microsoft's extended support ended in March 2008 and the designated successor was Visual Basic .NET(now known simply as Visual Basic). A dialect of Visual Basic, Visual Basic for Applications (VBA), is used as a macro or scripting language within several Microsoft applications, including Microsoft Office. VB 1.0 was introduced in 1991. The drag and drop design for creating the user interface is derived from a prototype form generator developed by Alan Cooper and his company called Tripod. Microsoft contracted with Cooper and his associates to develop Tripod into a programmable form system forWindows 3.0, under the code name Ruby (no relation to the Ruby programming language). Tripod did not include a programming language at all. Microsoft decided to combine Ruby with the Basic language to create Visual Basic. The Ruby interface generator provided the "visual" part of Visual Basic and this was combined with the "EB" Embedded BASIC engine designed for Microsoft's abandoned "Omega" database system. Ruby also provided the ability to load dynamic link libraries containing additional controls (then called "gizmos"), which later became the VBX interface.

Project 'Thunder' was initiated in 1990.

Visual Basic 1.0 (May 1991) was released for Windows at the Comdex/Windows World trade show in Atlanta, Georgia. Visual Basic 1.0 for DOS was released in September 1992. The language itself was not quite compatible with Visual Basic for Windows, as it was actually the next version of Microsoft's DOS-based BASIC compilers, QuickBASIC and BASIC Professional Development System. The interface used aText user interface, using extended ASCII characters to simulate the appearance of a GUI.

VB DOS icon

Visual Basic 2.0 was released in November 1992. The programming environment was easier to use, and its speed was improved. Notably, forms became instantiable objects, thus laying the foundational concepts of class modules as were later offered in VB4. Visual Basic 3.0 was released in the summer of 1993 and came in Standard and Professional versions. VB3 included version 1.1 of the Microsoft Jet Database Engine that could read and write Jet (or Access) 1.x databases. Visual Basic 4.0 (August 1995) was the first version that could create 32-bit as well as 16bit Windows programs. It has three editions; Standard, Professional, and Enterprise. It also introduced the ability to write non-GUI classes in Visual Basic. Incompatibilities between different releases of VB4 caused installation and operation problems. While previous versions of Visual Basic had used VBX controls, Visual Basic now used OLE controls (with files names ending in .OCX) instead. These were later to be named ActiveX controls. With version 5.0 (February 1997), Microsoft released Visual Basic exclusively for 32-bit versions of Windows. Programmers who preferred to write 16-bit programs were able to import programs written in Visual Basic 4.0 to Visual Basic 5.0, and Visual Basic 5.0 programs can easily be converted with Visual Basic 4.0. Visual Basic 5.0 also introduced the ability to create custom user controls, as well as the ability to compile to native Windows executable code, speeding up calculation-intensive code execution. A free, downloadable Control Creation Edition was also released for creation of ActiveX controls. It was also used as an introductory form of Visual Basic: a regular .exe project could be created and run in the IDE, but not compiled. Visual Basic 6.0 (Mid 1998) improved in a number of areas[10] including the ability to create webbased applications. VB6 has entered Microsoft's "non-supported phase" as of March 2008. Although the Visual Basic 6.0 development environment is no longer supported, the runtime is supported on Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008 and Windows 7.[11] Mainstream Support for Microsoft Visual Basic 6.0 ended on March 31, 2005. Extended support ended in March 2008.[12] In response, the Visual Basic user community expressed its grave concern and lobbied users to sign a petition to keep the product alive.[13] Microsoft has so far refused to change their position on the matter.[14] Ironically, around this time (2005), it was exposed that Microsoft's new anti-spyware offering, Microsoft Antispyware, was coded in Visual Basic 6.0. Its replacement, Windows Defender, was rewritten as C++ code