Two reasons that it is, and one reason that it isn’t

Love it or hate it, Visual Basic was an iconic programming language that changed the idea of who can write code. I say was, because even though Visual Basic is still alive, it’s slid into a sad twilight period of minimal innovation and gradual irrelevance. And while Microsoft is investing in several thriving languages (C#, TypeScript, and F## come to mind), it no longer seems interested in pursuing Bill Gates’ old dream of a programming language for non-specialists.

Back when VB was thriving, it was often singled out as a good starting place for beginners. Today, if you ask what programming language a novice should learn first, you’ll get a variety of answers, but Python will be near the top of the list. (Just ask Google!)

Python and classic VB have some superficial similarities and some key differences. But in one way, Python carries on a key part of the VB dream. It manages to be both an easy-to-pick-up generalist language for new programmers, and a specialist language for important niches like data science and AI. And that tells us two things. First, there’s something special about these languages. And second, there just might be something we can learn by comparing them.

#programming #learning-to-code #python #programming-languages #visual-basic #is python the spiritual successor to visual basic?