A rather large industry that formed around VisualBasic, and to a lesser extent BorlandDelphi, in which (more or less) plug-and-play components, usually GraphicalUserInterface components, could be popped in and used immediately. For example, if the default "grid" component in VB was not powerful enough, such as not providing colored cells, there were a slew of vendors that provided fancier grids. The catalog grew to hundreds of widgets and libraries. 

This greatly reduced the need for custom GUI programming because there often was at least one vendor who offered something close to what you wanted. The biggest vendor was http://www.vbxtras.com/

The industry seems to have scattered some since the end of VbClassic and the rise of web, DotNet, and JavaLanguage.

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CategoryUserInterface