Comment by hnlmorg

You can’t really separate the IDE from the language because so much of final binary could only be expressed from the IDE. This was something VB.NET fixed but was also why VB.NET was (in my opinion) a failure. Having that complexity shifted to code (like VB.NET did) undermined the simplicity and speed of the language for prototyping.

Also VB supported OOP. It’s just classes were stored in separate files. You didn’t have a singular file for all language constructs like you do in any normal “grown up” language. Classes went in a different file with a different extension to UI events.

As for Win32 APIs in VB, I thought those worked really well. In fact the C interop in VB was far better than in many modern languages of today.

I won’t deny VB was an oddball language with some rough edges and quirks though. But I also think it was those oddball designs that made it amazing good at GUI development and prototyping. In fact still I don’t think there has been a better language for that since.