Overview
Visual Basic .NET is the latest version of the most widely used programming language in the world, popular with professional developers and complete beginners alike. This book will teach you Visual Basic .NET from first principles. You'll quickly and easily learn how to write Visual Basic .NET code and create attractive windows and forms for the users of your applications. To get you started on the road to professional development you'll also learn about object-oriented programming, creating your own controls, working with databases, creating menus, and working with graphics.This book is written in the proven Wrox beginning style with clear explanations and plenty of code samples. Every new concept is explained thoroughly with Try It Out! examples and there are end-of-chapter questions to test yourself.
This book covers:
- Installing Visual Basic .NET
- How to write Visual Basic .NET code
- What the .NET Framework is and why it's important
- Controlling the flow through your application with loops and branching structures
- Creating useful windows and screens
- Creating your own menus
- A complete introduction to object-oriented programming
- Working with graphics
- Creating your own controls
- Accessing databases with ADO.NET
- Creating applications for the web
This book is aimed at readers who wish to learn to program using Visual Basic .NET. It assumes you have no prior experience of programming, but moves at a fast enough pace to be interesting if you have programmed in another language.
Author Biography: After working with Wrox Press on a number of projects since 1999, Matthew Reynolds is now an in-house author for Wrox, writing about and working with virtually all aspects of Microsoft.NET. He's also a regular contributor to Wrox's ASPToday, C#Today and Web Services Architect. He can be reached on [email protected].
Jonathan Crossland is co-author of "Professional Windows DNA" and a Systems Component Architect for Makoot Ltd. First acting as a promoter for the company and now MD, Jonathan spends a great number of hours with his team promoting web services. Jonathan has worked in the industry for just over 7 years, and works with VB.NET, C#, XML, VB6 and other related technologies.
Richard Blair is an MCSD and member of the Al and Dave fan club. He is currently working as a Consultant specializing in Web development. Rich has used Visual Basic since the Version 2.0 beta, and has been very happy to witness the changes the language has gone through. He has also co-authored Professional ASP XML and Professional VB.NET; both published by Wrox Press Ltd.
Thearon Willis currently works as a senior consultant and develops Intranet applications using ASP, DHTML, XML, JavaScript, VBScript, VB COM components, and SQL Server.
Editorials
From Barnes & Noble
The Barnes & Noble ReviewIf yesterday's COBOL and FORTRAN programmers could time-warp into the present, they'd be stunned at the power a language like Visual Basic.NET provides, and the relative simplicity with which programmers can access that power. If you've decided to learn VB.NET, you'll be glad you took Beginning Visual Basic.NET along for the ride -- especially if VB.NET is your first true object-oriented language, or your first language -- period.
The book stands out for its wonderfully clear explanations of the basic concepts every contemporary developer needs to understand. Objects. Methods. Properties. Encapsulation. Events. Flow control. Data structures. Arrays. And for its coverage of the .NET concepts every developer working with Microsoft tools needs to understand. Windows Forms and advanced GUIs. Web Forms and web services development. XML Support. Database integration with ADO.NET, including SQL Server programming techniques.
The authors are generous with examples (all downloadable from Wrox's web site). There's a helpful, practical chapter on debugging and error handling. And, if you're so inclined, you can test yourself with the exercise questions at the end of each chapter. But even if you don't, with this book it's a pretty good bet that you'll master the skills you've come for. (Bill Camarda)
Bill Camarda is a consultant, writer, and web/multimedia content developer with nearly 20 years' experience in helping technology companies deploy and market advanced software, computing, and networking products and services. He served for nearly ten years as vice president of a New Jerseybased marketing company, where he supervised a wide range of graphics and web design projects. His 15 books include Special Edition Using Word 2000 and Upgrading & Fixing Networks For Dummies®, Second Edition.