1. VB in the market and in the company

1.1 VB and other LGAs

In the field of software engineering workshops (SEW), Visual Basic© (VB) has serious international competitors, including Delphi© from Inprise and PowerBuilder© from PowerSoft. The French market offers other interesting alternatives, including Cognicase's Natstar©/Natweb© and PcSoft's WinDev©. Although VB and Delphi are by far the most comprehensive, each tool has its own areas of excellence and shortcomings, and VB is no exception.

In addition to ease of use and learning, a tool must meet the needs of the application to be implemented. It is therefore essential to study the characteristics of the application in order to choose the right development tool:

• is the application client-server, single-client...