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Visual Basic (1991)

In the late 1980s, Alan Cooper (who had worked on CBASIC) invented a drag-and-drop shell for Windows called "Tripod." Users started with an empty rectangular "slate" on the screen and could stitch controls together by right-clicking and dragging — a visual arrow connected events at one control to methods of another.

From Tripod to Ruby

Cooper tried to sell Tripod to several companies without success. In February 1988, he went to Microsoft's campus and showed his prototype to Gabe Newell (one of Gates's lieutenants, who later founded Valve Software). Five minutes into the hour-long demonstration, Newell raised his arm: "Bill has to see this." Gates declared it cool. Microsoft bought it and renamed it "Ruby."

The Second Life

Rather than shipping Ruby as a standalone shell with Windows 3.0, Microsoft decided to merge it with QuickBasic. Cooper was frustrated at first, but amazed by the final product:

"It's like sending your kid to college and he comes back summa cum laude, but he has a sex change operation. It took some time getting used to." — Alan Cooper

The Power of Visual Basic

Visual Basic was first introduced in May 1991. Before it, as much as 80% of a programmer's time was spent writing UI code. Visual Basic provided built-in UI creation using nothing more than a mouse, standardized the Windows application interface, and allowed developers to focus entirely on their application's unique logic.

Cooper earned about $1 million from selling Ruby to Microsoft. In May 1994, at the Windows World conference in Atlanta, Bill Gates awarded Cooper one of only seven Windows Pioneer Awards for his part in making Windows a success through the creation of Visual Basic.

"In Visual Basic, some programmers joke that the only thing left original of the original BASIC is the five letters."