Visual Studio is the full package of IDE and languages that Microsoft supports.
Microsoft used to sell languages individually, and it used the naming system of calling each one “Visual,” like Visual Basic, Visual C++, Visual C#. Since then, it’s packaged the languages together into one developer package, so you can choose which language you want to use without having to buy/download and install each one. It’s continued referring to Visual Basic by its old name.
Visual Studio is the environment where you build a program. Visual basic is the language, the raw material you use to build that program. There was a time when you didn’t need anything more than Notepad to build a Basic program because it was an interpreted language and didn’t need to be complied. Now-a-days you can’t do that. However, you can still write a web page with Notepad, including any JavaScript or VBScript; depending on your preference.
You don’t have to use Visual Studio as there are many other compilers that can be used to program in VB or C# or C/C++, HTML and possibly F# but I don’t know of any that allow you to program all of these in the same environment. Plus, there is a pretty good Debug environment in VS so you don’t need a third party app to do that.
If you really wanted to, and you know what you’re doing, you can even write in machine language. Possible, but I wouldn’t suggest it.
1) Visual Basic is a Programming language, while Visual Studio is an Integrated Development Enviornment(IDE).
2) The common languages in use supported by the .NET framework are vb.net, visual c#, visual c++ , visual j# .
Apart from these, there are as many as 44 different languages supported by Microsoft's .NET framework.
