You bring up a good point, which is that I remember most the GUI builder. Basic isn't really that great a language, all things considered. But being able to quickly design and deploy GUI apps with VB was better than anything I've encountered since.

There are things like WebFlow and FlutterFlow but those tools feel clunky by comparison.

Hmmm...I'm wondering if you have ever used Netbeans. There is a GUI builder for Java Swing. Top notch.

Netbeans java gui builder is the only builder I’ve seen come close to the vb gui builder. In fact I was a little disappointed moving from net beans to a “real Java ide” since their gui builders don’t exist or aren’t as good. But vb as a language is a lot better than Java for getting to a productive state for a novice.

The best IMO was in Delphi. Lazarus captures that spirit well today but is mostly unknown.

Netbeans GUI builder was more powerful than VB's in some ways but just made simple things complicated.

And everything in that IDE was fast and super responsive. Today's IDE are more complex than ever and yet they lack in functionality that was present in VB6.0

Yes, but look how good the dark grey text blends into the black background. /s

I once had a job offer from a big company that developed exclusively in VB.NET, after transitioning away from VB6. Both for desktop and web. So it's still out there.