What is your favorite programming language? Why?

Write a Programming Language

report for the language of your choosing. Your report should include a short
summary of the language highlighting its history, reason for existence, and main
design features (write up on expressions, assignment, sequencing, and selection
features in the programming language). Additionally, showcase through one of more
examples, the primary strengths of the language. This should be followed by your
own critique of the language, especially as compared to the language(s) you have
known or worked with in the past.
In your favorite language you will write and implement a program to compute all
the prime numbers between 1 and an input number N while adding the largest
numbers from the output. You will give a power point presentation of the report
Showcasing the program alongside according to a schedule (To be provided).
Dropbox folder to be created for submission of report/programs).

A programming language is a formal computer language or constructed

language designed to communicate instructions to a machine, particularly a
computer. Programming languages can be used to create programs to
control the behavior of a machine or to express algorithms.
The earliest known programmable machine preceded the invention of the
digital computer and is the automatic flute player described in the 9th
century by the brothers Musa in Baghdad, "during the Islamic Golden Age".
Koetsier, Teun (2001). On the prehistory of programmable machines; musical
automata, looms, calculators. PERGAMON, Mechanisma and Machine Theory
36. pp. 589603.
From the early 1800s, "programs" were used to direct the behavior of
machines such as Jacquard looms and player pianos. Ettinger, James (2004)
Jacquard's Web, Oxford University Press.
Thousands of different programming languages have been created, mainly
in the computer field, and many more still are being created every year.
Many programming languages require computation to be specified in an
imperative form (i.e., as a sequence of operations to perform), while other
languages use other forms of program specification such as the declarative
form (i.e. the desired result is specified, not how to achieve it).
The description of a programming language is usually split into the two
components of syntax (form) and semantics (meaning). Some languages are

defined by a specification document (for example, the C programming

language is specified by an ISO Standard), while other languages (such as
Perl) have a dominant implementation that is treated as a reference. Some
languages have both, with the basic language defined by a standard and
extensions taken from the dominant implementation being common.

What is the VB Net?

Visual Basic .NET (VB.NET) is a multi-paradigm, object-oriented programming language,
implemented on the .NET Framework. Microsoft launched VB.NET in 2002 as the successor to
its original Visual Basic language. Although the ".NET" portion was dropped in 2005, this article
uses "Visual Basic [.NET]" to refer to all Visual Basic languages releases since 2002, in order to
distinguish between them and the classic Visual Basic. Along with Visual C#, it is one of the two
main languages targeting the .NET framework.
Microsoft's integrated development environment (IDE) for developing in Visual Basic .NET
language is Visual Studio. Most of Visual Studio editions are commercial; the only exceptions
are Visual Studio Express and Visual Studio Community, which are freeware. In addition, .NET
Framework SDK includes a freeware command-line compiler called vbc.exe. Mono also
includes a command-line VB.NET compiler.

History of Visual Basic

The History of Visual Basic dates back to 1991 when VB 1.0 was introduced. The
core of Visual Basic was built on the older BASIC language, which was a popular
programming language throughout the 1980s.
Alan Cooper had developed a drag-and-drop interface in the late-1980s, Microsoft
approached him and asked his company, Tripod, to develop the concept into a form
building application. Tripod developed the project for Microsoft. It was called Ruby
and it did not include a programming language at all. Microsoft decided to bundle it
with the BASIC programming language, creating Visual Basic. Ruby also provided
the ability to load dynamic link libraries containing additional controls (then called
'gizmos'), which later became the VBX interface.
Brief History of Visual Basic (1.0 to 6.0)
Visual Basic 1.0 for Windows was released in May 1991 at a trade show in Atlanta,
Georgia.

Visual Basic 2.0 was released in November 1992. The programming environment
was easier to use, and its speed was improved. Notably, forms became core objects,
thus laying the foundational concepts of class modules as were later offered in VB4.
Visual Basic 3.0 was released in 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 was released in August 1995. It was the first version that could
create 32-bit as well as 16-bit Windows programs. It also introduced the ability to
write non-GUI classes in Visual Basic. 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 release in February 1997, Microsoft released Visual Basic
exclusively for 32-bit versions of Windows. Programmers who preferred to write 16bit programs were able to import programs written in Visual Basic 4.0 to Visual
Basic 5.0, and Visual Basic 5.0 programs could 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.
Visual Basic 6.0 released in mid 1998 improved in a number of areas including the
ability to create web-based applications. VB6 has been the most successful version
in the history of Visual Basic, it has entered Microsoft's 'non-supported phase' as of
March 2008. Although the development environment is no longer supported, the
runtime is supported on Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008 and Windows 7.
Mainstream Support for Microsoft VB 6.0 ended on March 31, 2005. Extended
support ended in March 2008. In response, the Visual Basic user community
expressed its grave concern and lobbied users to sign a petition to keep the product
alive. Microsoft has so far refused to change their position on the matter.
Brief History of Visual Basic .NET (7.0 to 9.0)

Visual Basic .NET is Microsoft's designated successor to VB 6.0, and is part of Microsoft's .NET
platform. It compiles and runs using the .NET Framework and is not backwards compatible with
VB 6.0. An automated conversion tool exists, but for most projects automated conversion is
impossible. Visual Basic.NET is designed to create .NET applications, Windows or Web
applications, and Web Services.

Visual Basic .NET 2003 was released in April 2003. Microsoft re-engineered Visual Basic from
the ground up, including full object-based programming facilities and complete integration with
the .NET Framework Common Language Runtime (CLR). This release became the first version
in the history of visual basic to provide programming tools for Pocket PCs and other mobile
devices, it also had better XML features and support for Windows Server 2003.

In 2005, Microsoft released Visual Studio 2005, which included Visual Basic 8.0 and the .NET
Framework 2.0. Visual Basic 2005 is the name used to refer to this update as Microsoft decided
to drop the .NET portion of the title. The new features included Design-time expression
evaluation, My pseudo- namespace, dynamically generated classes and Data Source binding for
easier database client/server development. These enhancements were mainly intended to
reinforce VB's focus as a rapid application development platform and further differentiate it from
C#.
In 2005, Microsoft also launched the Visual Basic 2005 Express as part of the Visual Studio
Express product range, The Express editions are free development tools having a streamlined
version of the user interface, and lack more advanced features of the standard versions. Microsoft
created these for students, hobbyists and novices. This was a milestone event in the history of
visual basic as it was the first time VB became available free of cost.
In 2008, Microsoft launched Visual Studio 2008 including VB 9.0 and the .NET Framework 3.5.
Visual Basic 2008 as it is known, includes features like Anonymous types, support for LINQ,
Lambda expressions and XML literals. In 2008, Microsoft also released the free Visual Basic
2008 Express as an updated version of Visual Basic 2005 Express.
At the time of writing this article Microsoft is testing the beta 2 version of their upcoming release
Visual Basic 2010 (VB 10.0) which is part of the Visual Studio 2010 with .NET Framework 4.0.
This version includes many Compiler and Language improvements like Auto-Implemented
Properties, Collection Initializers and Implicit Line Continuation. The Integrated Development
Environment included new features like Highlighting References and IntelliSense Suggestion
Mode.
Thought-out the History of Visual Basic the focus has always been on rapid application
development and that's what makes Visual Basic such a widely used programming environment.