Professional VB.NET

We have updated this title and replaced it with Professional VB.NET, 2nd Edition ISBN1861007167, which will be available from April 2002. The 2nd edition is fully compatible with final release (version 1.0) of the .NET Framework.

Visual Basic.NET is the next version of Visual Basic and a major part of Microsoft's .NET initiative. Responding to pressure from the VB community, VB.NET is a significant upgrade that is far more flexible and powerful than previous versions. Microsoft has introduced a number of new features, not least a move to full object-oriented programming and greatly enhanced web design facilities.

This comprehensive book takes an in-depth look at the new and enhanced features of VB.NET and provides the professional programmer with the knowledge needed to build real-world applications and fully utilize the power of VB.NET.

This book covers:

- An introduction to the .NET Framework and Common Language Runtime (CLR)

- Deriving classes from base classes using inheritance

- Handling errors with the Try...Catch structure

- Developing multi-threaded applications

- COM and .NET component interoperability

- Accessing data with ADO.NET and XML

- Building web applications with Web Forms

- Creating custom controls for Windows Forms and Web Forms

- Creating and consuming Web Services

Billy Hollis first learned BASIC over 25 years ago, and is co-author of the first book ever published on Visual Basic.NET, VB.NET Programming on the Public Beta, from Wrox Press. He is a frequent speaker at conferences, including Comdex and the Visual Basic Insiders Technical Summit (VBITS), often on the topics of software design and specification, object-based development in Visual Basic, and Microsoft.NET. Billy is MSDN Regional Director of Developer Relations in Nashville, Tennessee for Microsoft, and has hosted Developer Days in Nashville for the last three years. He has his own consulting company in Nashville that focuses on training, consultation, and software development for the Microsoft.NET platform.

Rockford Lhotka is co-author of 'VB.NET Programming on the Public Beta', author of 'Visual Basic 6 Distributed Objects' and 'Visual Basic 6 Business Objects' and is a columnist for Visual Basic Programmers Journal and MSDN Online. He speaks at several major conferences around the world. Rockford is the Principal Technology Evangelist for Magenic Technologies, one of the nation's premiere Microsoft Certified Solution Providers dedicated to solving today's most challenging business problems using 100% Microsoft tools and technology.

Richard Case is a Financial Analyst Programmer with Financial Objects Plc based in Covent Garden, London, England, where he works on the company's advanced banking software. Richard is also a Microsoft Certified Solutions Developer. He has been using Visual Basic since version 3 and is looking forward to using it for many years to come. Richard can be reached at richard@vbdotnet.co.uk.

Whitney Hankison is a Financial Systems Analyst with the County of Santa Barbara in California. She specializes in Vb programming and System Architecture/Network Configuration. She has been working in the computer field since 1984 and holds MCP certifications in NT Server and Workstation. Whitney can be reached at whankison@earthlink.net.

Bill Sheldon is a software developer and aspiring author originally from Baltimore, Maryland. Holding a degree in Computer Science from the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT), he has managed to work as a software developer since his departure from the U.S. Navy, following the Gulf War. He has held his Microsoft Certified Solution Developer (MCSD) certification for several years, and is currently employed as a Principal Engineer with InterKnowlogy. As a software engineer, Bill designs software solutions and develops business components for extranets, intranets and the Internet.

Jonathan Pinnock spends most of his time developing and extending the increasingly successful PlatformOne product set that his company, JPA, markets to the financial services community. He seems to spend the rest of his time writing for Wrox.

Bill Forgey has several years of consulting experience in software design and development. He has created many applications using ASP, Delphi, Pascal, Visual C++, and Visual Basic and specialized in n-tier architecture using SQL, ADO, and COM development. Bill currently works as the Technical Lead at a large bank introducing project methodology, new technologies, and training to different development teams throughout the bank. Bill can be contacted via e-mail at bforgey@vbcentral.net.