I’m in High School and I Built VBX: A Modern, Compiled Successor to Visual Basic 6

#go #opensource #showdev #programming

Hey DEV Community! 👋

Remember the 90s and early 2000s? You'd open a simple program, drag a button onto a form, write a couple of readable lines of code, hit Run, and a real, working .exe popped up instantly on your screen.

No 500MB of node_modules. No broken Python virtual environments. No 40GB Visual Studio installation. Just pure, unadulterated programming joy.

Microsoft killed Visual Basic 6 back in 2008. But as a high school student who fell in love with that retro, productive paradigm, I decided to spend my nights building a modern answer for 2026: Meet VBX (Visual Basic X) ⚡.

🏛️ What is VBX?

VBX is not a toy interpreter running inside Python.

It’s an open-source, high-performance compiler written in pure Go that translates clean, human-readable Basic syntax directly into standard C99. The generated C code is then compiled via GCC or Clang with -O2 optimizations into a standalone native binary with zero runtime dependencies.

.vbx Source Code ➔ [ VBX Parser (Go) ] ➔ Standard C99 Code ➔ [ GCC/Clang -O2 ] ➔ Native Binary (.exe)

💻 A Quick Taste of VBX

Here’s an interactive program in VBX that takes user input, shows native OS popups, and writes data to disk:

' Interactive App in VBX
Dim userName = InputBox("Please enter your name:", "Registration")

' Display native OS alert (Windows, Mac, or Linux)
MsgBox "Hello, " & userName & "! Saving your data...", "Welcome"

' Native File I/O
Dim logFile = "user_data.txt"
File.Write logFile, "Registered User: " & userName

' Read it back and verify
Dim savedContent = File.Read(logFile)
MsgBox "Verified from file: " & savedContent, "Success"

You run it with:

vbx run app.vbx

Or compile a release binary ready to distribute:

vbx build app.vbx -o my_app

⚡ Under the Hood (The Engineering)

As someone passionate about systems programming, I wanted VBX to be rock-solid:

Zero External Dependencies in Compiler: The Go compiler relies strictly on Go's standard library (bufio, strings, regexp, os/exec).
Memory Safety (No Heap Leaks): Instead of naive malloc calls for string concatenation, the generated C runtime uses a static ring-buffer memory pool (vbx_alloc_str)—a technique borrowed from classic game engines (like Doom). It chews through 10,000 loop iterations with flat, zero-leak memory usage.
Multi-Pass Type Inference: Evaluates expression types across AST passes to emit clean C function signatures and format specifiers (long long, double, const char*).
42 Test Suites: Tested end-to-end with unit, integration, and nested-block stress tests.
GPLv3 with a Runtime Exception: The compiler remains free software forever, but applications compiled with VBX are 100% yours to distribute or sell under any license you choose.

👧 Meet Our Mascot: BASIC-Chan!

Every great language needs a soul. We designed BASIC-Chan—a cyberpunk anime tech girl holding a glowing holographic floppy disk and a floating retro "Click Me" button, matching our neon cyan and purple aesthetic!

🎨 Tooling & VS Code Extension

We didn't want to stop at the CLI. We’ve already built a full multi-editor ecosystem:

The Official VS Code Extension is already live on the Visual Studio Marketplace (works in the browser on vscode.dev too!).
Syntax highlighting packages available for JetBrains IDEs, Sublime Text, Notepad++, Vim, Neovim, Emacs, and Micro.

🌟 What's Next?

Our next big milestone is VBX Studio: a dedicated, lightweight, cross-platform visual IDE with a true drag-and-drop form designer, just like the classic 90s RAD tools we all miss.

As Linus Torvalds famously once said: "Just a hobby, won't be big and professional..." 😉

⭐ GitHub Repository: [https://github.com/M5Devs/vbx]
🎨 Editors Repository: [https://github.com/M5Devs/vbx-editors]

I'd genuinely love to hear your thoughts, feedback, and what features you'd like to see in VBX! Let me know in the comments below! ❤️