Learn to Write Programs using Visual Fred

About Visual Fred

Visual Fred is a language which aims to be compatible with classic Microsoft Visual Basic. Visual Fred will allow programmers using Visual Basic version 5 and 6 to continue programming with their favourite language, and to be able to run their programs on Windows and Linux.

Although Visual Fred aims to be compatible with classic Visual Basic, it is not a clone of Visual Basic. Making an exact clone of Visual Basic is technically very difficult, and from a legal perspective would probably be prevented by Microsoft.

Therefore Visual Fred has the long term aim of compiling most Visual Basic version 5 and 6 programs, and of being much more compatible than VB.NET is. Over time Visual Fred compatibility will improve, as features are added to the language to increase the degree of compatibility.

Where did the name come from?

For some reason only known to themselves, Microsoft discontinued the world's most successful programming language (Visual Basic v3 to v6 also known as classic Visual Basic). They replaced Visual Basic v3 to v6 with VB.NET which is mostly incompatible, and which uses the .NET environment. This environment is highly complex and is intended by Microsoft for new development under Windows XP and Windows Vista.

Many Visual Basic programmers were upset and signed petitions asking Microsoft to continue supporting the classic Visual Basic line. Here is Microsoft's reponse. Programmers also pointed out that the replacement language is so different that is might as well be called Visual Fred instead of Visual Basic.

Thus Visual Fred was born - it has these objectives:

1. To provide an increaing level of compatibility with Visual Basic, especially versions 5 and 6.
2. To be more compatible with Visual Basic than VB.NET
3. To run equally under Windows and Linux.

Language information

Here is a sample program in Visual Fred:

  ' "Hello world" program

  public sub Main()
    call Msgbox("Hello", "My first program")
  end sub

As you can see it is similar (but not identical) to Visual Basic versions 5 and 6. Note that Visual Fred is still in a beta state, and its compatibility will increase over time. You can download the beta version here.