Microsoft announces Visual Basic 5.0 Professional

Microsoft today announced Visual Basic 5.0 Professional, which will featurea native code compiler, optimized forms engine, and Internet features such as ActiveX control creation. An entry level version of VB5, called theLearning Edition, and an Enterprise Edition are expected to be announcedlater this month.

Using the new native code compiler, developers can create Visual Basic appsthat compete with the fastest C++ apps and require no addition runtimefiles. VB5 also offers a new integrated development environment (IDE) thatincludes IntelliSense, a feature that displays drop-down lists of codeyou can insert automatically. This feature is incredibly useful, and muchsought after by the development community.

Visual Basic 5.0 will be available for Windows 95 and NT 4.0 on March 19th.There will be no 16-bit version