It's an interesting story but it's told as a "person A did this, Person B did that, and Person C had this idea, etc." Maybe it's a consequence how my brain works but any time I read that type of recap, I forget everyone's name and the other trivia 5 minutes after I'm done reading it.
When revisiting technology history, what tends to stick in my mind is the context and industry forces prevalent at the time and the story doesn't have that.
So my recollection of context in 1990 would include...
1st: The prevailing method of writing Windows programs in 1990 (the Windows v3.0 & v3.1 era) was the raw Win32 API. That meant the 'C' Language WndProc(), giant switch case statements to handle WM_PAINT messages. Basically, all the stuff taught in the thick Charles Petzold book.[1] This was very tedious and complex type of programming. It was not friendly to corporate aka "enterprise apps" aka LOB "line of business" type of programming. (Java would arrive on the scene 5 years later but I didn't see a lot of corporate adoption until v1.3 which was year 2000.)
2nd: You had a large base of old-style DOS text mode developers for line-of-business apps using programming languages such as dBASE III, Clipper, FoxPro, and other 4GL tools, etc. The typical skillset of those programmers did not include the C Language.
In 1990, Windows 3.0 was becoming popular as a platform for corporate desktops and businesses wanted to write apps for it.
Visual Basic v1.0 hit that perfect sweet spot for a bunch of refugees from the DOS text mode 4GL languages to write Windows programs. They didn't have to learn the low-level C language or mess around for months with the Petzold book. Visual Basic had this ingenious abstraction called "forms" that hid the WndProc() monster and its messy switch case statements. It was a huge transformation. It was phenomenal how VB "democratized" the programming of Windows apps. A bunch of ISVs sprung up that built their business around Visual Basic.
The recent parallels to VB as an "inviting tool for newcomers" might be PHP replacing a lot of CGI+PERL and maybe JQuery eliminating a lot of low-level Javascript getelementbyid(). Today, when I look at the iOS and Android landscape, I still haven't seen anything (Titanium? Xamarin?) that grabs mindshare the way VB did back in 1990.
When revisiting technology history, what tends to stick in my mind is the context and industry forces prevalent at the time and the story doesn't have that.
So my recollection of context in 1990 would include...
1st: The prevailing method of writing Windows programs in 1990 (the Windows v3.0 & v3.1 era) was the raw Win32 API. That meant the 'C' Language WndProc(), giant switch case statements to handle WM_PAINT messages. Basically, all the stuff taught in the thick Charles Petzold book.[1] This was very tedious and complex type of programming. It was not friendly to corporate aka "enterprise apps" aka LOB "line of business" type of programming. (Java would arrive on the scene 5 years later but I didn't see a lot of corporate adoption until v1.3 which was year 2000.)
2nd: You had a large base of old-style DOS text mode developers for line-of-business apps using programming languages such as dBASE III, Clipper, FoxPro, and other 4GL tools, etc. The typical skillset of those programmers did not include the C Language.
In 1990, Windows 3.0 was becoming popular as a platform for corporate desktops and businesses wanted to write apps for it.
Visual Basic v1.0 hit that perfect sweet spot for a bunch of refugees from the DOS text mode 4GL languages to write Windows programs. They didn't have to learn the low-level C language or mess around for months with the Petzold book. Visual Basic had this ingenious abstraction called "forms" that hid the WndProc() monster and its messy switch case statements. It was a huge transformation. It was phenomenal how VB "democratized" the programming of Windows apps. A bunch of ISVs sprung up that built their business around Visual Basic.
The recent parallels to VB as an "inviting tool for newcomers" might be PHP replacing a lot of CGI+PERL and maybe JQuery eliminating a lot of low-level Javascript getelementbyid(). Today, when I look at the iOS and Android landscape, I still haven't seen anything (Titanium? Xamarin?) that grabs mindshare the way VB did back in 1990.
[1]http://www.amazon.com/Programming-Windows-3-1-Charles-Petzol...