Visual Basic is the third-generation

Third-generation programming language

A third-generation programming language is a refinement of a second-generation programming language. The second generation of programming languages brought logical structure to software. The third generation brought refinements to make the languages more programmer-friendly...

 event-driven programming language

Event-driven programming

In computer programming, event-driven programming or event-based programming is a programming paradigm in which the flow of the program is determined by events—i.e., sensor outputs or user actions or messages from other programs or threads.Event-driven programming can also be defined as an...

 and integrated development environment

Integrated development environment

An integrated development environment is a software application that provides comprehensive facilities to computer programmers for software development...

 (IDE) from Microsoft

Microsoft

Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...

 for its COM

Component Object Model

Component Object Model is a binary-interface standard for software componentry introduced by Microsoft in 1993. It is used to enable interprocess communication and dynamic object creation in a large range of programming languages...

  programming model. Visual Basic is designed to be relatively easy to learn and use.

Visual Basic was derived from BASIC

BASIC

BASIC is a family of general-purpose, high-level programming languages whose design philosophy emphasizes ease of use - the name is an acronym from Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code....

 and enables the rapid application development (RAD)

Rapid application development

Rapid application development is a software development methodology that uses minimal planning in favor of rapid prototyping. The "planning" of software developed using RAD is interleaved with writing the software itself...

 of graphical user interface (GUI)

Graphical user interface

In computing, a graphical user interface is a type of user interface that allows users to interact with electronic devices with images rather than text commands. GUIs can be used in computers, hand-held devices such as MP3 players, portable media players or gaming devices, household appliances and...

 applications, access to database

Database

A database is an organized collection of data for one or more purposes, usually in digital form. The data are typically organized to model relevant aspects of reality , in a way that supports processes requiring this information...

s using Data Access Object

Data Access Object

In computer software, a data access object is an object that provides an abstract interface to some type of database or persistence mechanism, providing some specific operations without exposing details of the database. It provides a mapping from application calls to the persistence layer...

s, Remote Data Objects

Remote Data Objects

Remote Data Objects is the name of an obsolete data access application programming interface primarily used in Microsoft Visual Basic applications on Windows 95 and later operating systems. This includes database connection, queries, stored procedures, result manipulation, and change commits...

, or ActiveX Data Objects, and creation of ActiveX

ActiveX

ActiveX is a framework for defining reusable software components in a programming language-independent way. Software applications can then be composed from one or more of these components in order to provide their functionality....

 controls and objects. Scripting language

Scripting language

A scripting language, script language, or extension language is a programming language that allows control of one or more applications. "Scripts" are distinct from the core code of the application, as they are usually written in a different language and are often created or at least modified by the...

s such as VBA

Visual Basic for Applications

Visual Basic for Applications is an implementation of Microsoft's event-driven programming language Visual Basic 6 and its associated integrated development environment , which are built into most Microsoft Office applications...

 and VBScript

VBScript

VBScript is an Active Scripting language developed by Microsoft that is modeled on Visual Basic. It is designed as a “lightweight” language with a fast interpreter for use in a wide variety of Microsoft environments...

 are syntactically similar to Visual Basic, but perform differently.

A programmer can put together an application using the components

Component-based software engineering

Component-based software engineering is a branch of software engineering that emphasizes the separation of concerns in respect of the wide-ranging functionality available throughout a given software system...

 provided with Visual Basic itself.