Happy 20th Birthday Visual Basic!

My, what a journey it’s been. Almost fifteen years ago I randomly bought a copy of “Visual Basic 5: Deluxe Learning Edition” – I was just 15 at the time and wanted a new hobby, and writing software seemed like it would be fun. In those early days, I had no idea what career I would choose, and really didn’t intend for software development to become the dominant force in my life – I just wanted a better, more productive way to spend my time during the summer.

In the years that have went by, I became passionate about the field, and all it encompasses (possible obsessed, if you believe my wife) – it’s been the driving force in my life. Today, I manage a team of 6 developers, and have a fun start-up with some friends (that someday won’t cost me money every month) – and all because I bought that book. Overall, I have a lot to thank VB for, it really did get me started in this field.

Today though, my language of choice has moved on to newer options – I prefer bleeding technologies when I can use them – but VB will always have a place in my heart, and I’ll always follow its progress as it continues to transform and adapt to an ever-changing world. As the most popular .NET language (contrary to what many of the C# developers think), it plays a vital role in the development of the framework and the ecosystem.

In the conversations I’ve had with Anthony about the future of the language, I greatly look forward to writing about its 25th birthday; I expect those will be exciting times for the language and the entire .NET ecosystem.

If you’re a power user, or fancy yourself a power tweaker, this one might just be for you.

The one real downside, is that you shouldn’t plan on doing much while it’s installing; the almost 400 MB of RAM consumed during parts of the installation may slow your system to a crawl. So, make plans to do something else while it’s working, because you wont be.

Update: Visual Studio 2005 SP1 Known Issues

Here’s a quick registry hack to add a vertical line in the editor at any column you wish, just double click the REG file and you’re set. The contents of the file look something like this:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\
  VisualStudio\8.0\Text Editor]
"Guides"="RGB(128, 128, 128) 100"

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\
  VisualStudio\7.1\Text Editor]
"Guides"="RGB(128, 128, 128) 100"

The setting works something like this: The RGB() part defines the color of the line, the number at the end defines the column the line is displayed at. If your style defines a limit on the length of a line, this is a great way to see at a glance if you’re going too long.

Note: This adds the key for both Visual Studio 2003 and Visual Studio 2005.

Update: The original REG file I linked to had a formatting error that caused the data to import improperly. I’ve replaced the file with a working copy.

Here’s the list of symptoms addressed:

• You experience a slow response time when you use single-step debugging. For example, the response time is slow when you press F10 to step into a line of code.
• You experience a slow response time when the Error List or the Task List is updated by Visual Studio 2005.
• You experience a slow response time when you use the IntelliSense feature.

Once I hear back from Microsoft support, I’ll post details if it makes any difference.