* Small Visual Basic is the visual version of Small Basic and small version of Visual Basic.
* It took 4 years of my life to be evolved over 3 versions until it is finally complete, and I hope you try it and tell others about. It is totally free and open source.
* sVB can be used to introduce programming to 6 years old kids and above, in an easy and simple way. Using the form designer to graphically design windows, allows to create amazing applications with few lines of code. All you need is to prepare some attractive images, drag them on the form designer, and use the animation methods to write some short and funny applications that interest small kids (see the animation and Jerry projects in the samples folder).
* But sVB is not just for kids. It is also a powerful language for adult beginners, who can use it as an easy doorway to learn VB .NET and VS .NET.
* sVB can create applications that show one or more window, draw simple and advanced graphics and animate them, play sounds, open and save files, create games, and so many other interesting things. The sVB samples folder, which is installed with language, contains more than 90 different samples, including the Ball, Cars, Tetris, Tom and Jerry games, and many other interesting samples.
* sVB still has the Small Basic TextWindow, GraphicsWindow and Turtle, but that have many improvements and new features.
* sVB has a Form Designer that contains a toolbox, a font dialog, a color dialog, a properties window, and a menu designer, so that you can easily and quickly design amazing forms with 12 different types of controls in addition to timers and menus .
* sVB adds many improvements to the Small Basic code editor like auto-formatting code.
* sVB has a code debugger that allows you to step into code lines, and add breakpoint to force the debugger stop at their lines. In debug mode, you can also view the value of any variable or expression. You can use the debugger to fix code errors, and it can also be an educational tool that you can use to show kids how the code is executed to help them understand loops and function calls.
* The sVB compiler is an improved version of the Small Basic compiler, with new syntax features like defining functions, parameters and local variables, using array initializers, and splitting long code lines over multiple sub-lines. The sVB keywords includes the 14 Small Basic keywords + 16 mew keywords like the Mod and & operators.
* You can use the sVB Evaluator to evaluate math expressions at run time, which allows you to create an application to draw any function. See the "Draw Functions" project in the sVB samples folder.
* sVB can create multi-form projects and code libraries.
* sVB can define test functions and you can use the UnitTest library to run them and show the test results.
This looks amazing for kids getting into coding. Thank you.
VB6 was honestly one of my all time favourite languages. Was something like 8-9 years old and compared to Qbasic, VB was just mind-blowing to me. Spent so many hours coding random useless stuff, it was just an amazing gateway to programming with instant feedback and results. Compared to today's stack of frontend/backend separation, and even frontend presentation/business logic separation (i'm looking at you html), vb was such a good way for people to learn.