Microsoft Visual Basic .NET Step by Step

Here's a fast way for any programmer to begin writing professional Microsoft Windows-based applications for the Microsoft .NET platform-and extend them to the Web-one step at a time. Best-selling author Michael Halvorson shows how to unleash the power of the new version of Visual Basic, with coverage of programming fundamentals, Windows Forms, debugging, error handling, application deployment, object-oriented design, printing, and database access. The book also includes an introduction to creating Web applications, information on upgrading your Visual Basic 6 applications to Visual Basic .NET, and practice files on CD-ROM.

For the several million developers using "traditional" Visual Basic 6, Microsoft Visual Basic .NET Step by Step will put the new VB .NET within reach with a very approachable tour of the new version's features used to build traditional client-side software. If you've been put off by the newfangled books on .NET that spin the new VB as Internet-focused and unrelated to your existing expertise, this title shows you how to leverage your knowledge to get going with Microsoft's newest platform.

The salient feature of this text is the author's patient presentation style, which stresses "traditional" VB programming. (While VB 6 did technically support Web programming, the unarguable reality is that most developers have built form-based programs for years.) This volume shows you how to use the same techniques for the new VB .NET. The author begins his presentation here with a clever slot-machine application to get you started. Other early sections cover the basics of VB .NET from a language perspective, including basics like variables, data types, and flow control statements. This handsomely printed volume makes use of two-toned color (in blue) to highlight differences between VB 6 in VB .NET, making it an invaluable resource for programmers making this transition.

Other essential technologies get their due here as well, from basic control programming with Windows Forms, integrating with ActiveX controls, to a very approachable guide to the new ADO.NET APIs for databases. Coverage of how to bind data to a variety of controls, plus using the new VB .NET DataGrid control, will show you how to do all you did in VB 6 in the new .NET. Instead of getting bogged down in details, the author does a good job of presenting what working programmers need to know. Later chapters delve into .NET APIs for working with files, strings, and collections. This title doesn't pretend to cover ASP.NET in any detail, though there is a useful introduction to the subject, as well as how to use the Microsoft Internet Explorer Object to build VB applications that display HTML and other Internet content.

The reality is that most VB 6 programmers will have to learn a lot when it comes to .NET. Before launching into a whole new paradigm of Web development, this book shows that today's VB has a lot to do with the older VB 6 standard. This text will be nearly indispensable for any VB 6 programmers making the leap to .NET. It even suggests that rumors of the death of the traditional client-side VB application may be somewhat exaggerated. This title shows you that the new easier deployment and productivity features of VB .NET may extend the life of such applications in one of the best-available tutorials for learning VB .NET, bar none. --Richard Dragan