VBScript

VBScript is a Microsoft proprietary interpreted scripting language whose goals and operation are virtually identical to those of JavaScript/JScript. VBScript, however, has syntax more like Visual Basic than Java. It is interpreted directly from source code and permits scripting within an HTML document. As with JavaScript/JScript, VBScript can be executed within the browser or at the server before the document is sent to the browser.

VBScript is procedural languages and so uses subroutines as the basic unit. VBScript grew out of Visual Basic, a programming languages that has been around for several years. Visual Basic is the basic for scripting languages in the Microsoft Office packages (Word, Access, Excel, and PowerPoint). Visual Basic is component based: a Visual Basic program is built by placing components on to a form and then using the Visual Basic Language to link them together. Visual Basic also gave rise to grandfather of the ActiveX control, the Visual Basic Control (VBX).

VBX shared a common interface that allowed them to be placed on a Visual Basic form. This was one of the first widespread uses of component based software. VBXs gave way to OLE Controls (OCXs), which were renamed ActiveX. When Microsoft took an interest in the Internet, they moved OCX to ActiveX and modeled VBScript after Visual Basic. The main different between Visual Basic and VBScript is that to promote security, VBScript has no functions that interact with files on the user’s machine.