Visual Basic (classic)
The original Visual Basic (also referred to as Classic Visual Basic) is a third-generation event-driven programming language from Microsoft known for its Component Object Model (COM) programming model first released in 1991 and declared legacy during 2008. Microsoft intended Visual Basic to be relatively easy to learn and use. 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. A programmer can create an application using the components provided by the Visual Basic program itself. Over time the community of programmers developed third-party components. Programs written in Visual Basic can also make use of the Windows API, which requires external functions declarations. The final release was version 6 in 1998. On April 8, 2008, Microsoft stopped supporting Visual Basic 6.0 IDE. The Microsoft Visual Basic team still maintains compatibility for Visual Basic 6.0 applications through its "It Just Works" program on supported Windows operating systems. In 2014, some software developers still preferred Visual Basic 6.0 over its successor, Visual Basic .NET. Visual Basic 6.0 was selected as the most dreaded