Performance and Other Issues
Earlier versions of Visual Basic (prior to version 5) compiled the code to P-Code only. The P-Code is interpreted by the language runtime. The benefits of P-Code include portability and smaller binary file sizes, but it usually slows down the execution, since having a runtime adds an additional layer of interpretation. However, small amounts of code and algorithms can be constructed to run faster than compiled native code.
Visual Basic applications require Microsoft Visual Basic runtime MSVBVMxx.DLL, where xx is the relevant version number, either 50 or 60. MSVBVM60.dll comes as standard with Windows in all editions after Windows 98 while MSVBVM50.dll comes with all editions after Windows 95. A Windows 95 machine would however require inclusion with the installer of whichever dll was needed by the program.
Visual Basic 5 and 6 can compile code to either native or P-Code but in either case the runtime is still required for built in functions and forms management.
Criticisms levelled at Visual Basic editions prior to VB.NET include:
- Versioning problems associated with various runtime DLLs, known as DLL hell
- Poor support for object-oriented programming
- Inability to create multi-threaded applications, without resorting to Windows API calls
- Inability to create Windows services
- Variant types have a greater performance and storage overhead than strongly typed programming languages
- Dependency on complex and fragile COM Registry entries
- The development environment is no longer supported by Microsoft.
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