Professional VB.NET, Second Edition

What is this book about?

.NET is designed to provide a new environment within which you can develop almost any application to run on Windows (and possibly in the future on other platforms). Visual Basic .NET (VB.NET) is likely to be a very popular development tool for use with this framework. VB.NET is a .NET compliant language and, as such, has (except for legacy reasons) almost identical technical functionality as the new C# language and Managed Extensions for C++. Using VB.NET, you can develop a dynamic Web page, a component of a distributed application, a database access component, or a classic Windows desktop application.

In order to incorporate Visual Basic into the .NET Framework, a number of new features have been added to it. In fact, the changes are so extensive that VB.NET should be viewed as a new language rather than simply as Visual Basic 7. However, these changes were necessary to give developers the features that they have been asking for: true object orientated programming, easier deployment, better interoperability, and a cohesive environment in which to develop applications.

What does this book cover?

In this book, we cover VB.NET virtually from start to finish: We begin by looking at the .NET Framework, and end by looking at best practices for deploying .NET applications. In between, we look at everything from database access to integration with other technologies such as XML, along with investigating the new features in detail. You will see that VB.NET has emerged as a powerful yet easy to use language that will allow you to target the Internet just as easily as the desktop.

This book explains the underlying philosophy and design of the .NET Framework and Common Language Runtime (CLR) and explains the differences between Visual Basic 6 and Visual Basic .NET.

You will learn how to

• Develop applications and components using Visual Studio .NET
• Effectively apply inheritance and interfaces when designing objects and components
• Organize your code using namespaces
• Handle errors using the Try...Catch...Finally structure
• Access data using ADO.NET and bind controls to the underlying data sources
• Create Windows applications and custom Windows controls
• Interoperate with COM and ActiveX components
• Create transactional and queuing components
• Use .NET Remoting to send serialized objects between clients and servers
• Create Windows Services
• Use VB.NET to access information on the Web
• Create and consume Web Services
• Secure your applications and code using the tools provided in the .NET Framework SDK
• Arrange your applications and libraries in assemblies and deploy them using Visual Studio .NET

Who is this book for?

This book is aimed at experienced Visual Basic developers who want to make the transition to VB.NET.

What do you need to use this book?

Although it is possible to create VB.NET applications using the command lines tools contained in the .NET Framework SDK, you will need Visual Studio .NET (Professional or higher), which includes the .NET Framework SDK, to use this book to the full.

Here are some additional notes on what you may need:

• Some chapters make use of SQL Server 2000. However, you can also run the example code using MSDE (Microsoft Data Engine), which ships with Visual Studio .NET.
• Several chapters make use of Internet Information Services (IIS). IIS ships with Windows 2000 Server, Windows 2000 Professional, and Windows XP, although it is not installed by default.
• Chapter 18 makes use of MSMQ to work with queued transactions. MSMQ ships with Windows 2000 Server, Windows 2000 Professional, and Windows XP, although it is not installed by default.

Fred Barwell is an MCSD and a graduate from the University of Waterloo with a Bachelor of Mathematics, Honors Computer Science and Information Systems degree. He has been developing software professionally for over 10 years, primarily with Visual Basic and SQL Server.

Richard Blair is Web Application Architect specializing in Microsoft Web Technologies, He focuses on emerging technology and its impact on business and development. Key areas that he has helped clients evaluate include: streamlining the electronic business process, expanding access to vital information, and creating usable systems. He now works as a Senior Consultant for SEI-Information 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 Developer. He has been using Visual Basic since version 3 and is looking forward to using it for many years to come.

Jonathan Crossland is co-author of Professional Windows DNA, Professional VB.NET, and Beginning VB.NET. He is currently working at Yokogawa Electric Corporation in the UK, where he is happily involved with the creation of software technologies for eight years and now spends most of his time in C# and ASP.NET.

Bill Forgey is Technical Lead in his current position, introducing project methodology, new technologies, standards, and training to development teams. He spend some time consulting and have exposed to technologies such as ASP, Delphi, Pascal, COM, C/C++, SQL, Java, ADO, Visual Basic, and now .NET. He is also co-author to Beginning Visual Basic .NET Databases.

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.

Billy S. 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, as well as several other .NET books. 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. He was chosen by Microsoft to train 200 instructors for their 2001 .NET Developer Tour.

Rockford Lhotka is the Principal Technology Evangelist for Magnetic Technologies, one of the Nation’s premiere Microsoft Gold Certified Partners dedicated to solving today’s most challenging business problems using 100% Microsoft tools and technology. He has over 14 years experience in software development and has worked on many projects in various roles, including software architecture, design and development, network administration, and project management.

Tim McCarthy is a Principal Engineer at InterKnowlogy, where he architects and builds highly scalable n-tier web applications utilizing the latest Microsoft technologies. He has been an author and technical reviewer for several books.

Jan D. Narkiewicz is Chief Technical Officer at Software Pronto, Inc. In his spare time he is Academia Coordination for the Windows curriculum at U.C. Berkeley Extension, he teaches at U.C. Santa Cruz Extension, writes for ASPT today and occasionally plays some football.

Jonathan Pinnock started programming in Pal III assembler on his school’s PDP 8/e, with a massive 4K of memory. He spends most of his time developing and extending the increasingly successful PlatformOne product set that his company, JPA, markets to the financial services community.

Rama Ramachandran is Vice President, Technology with Imperium, a Microsoft Certified Partner for E-Commerce, Rama is a Microsoft Certified Solution Developer and Site-Builder and has excelled in designing and developing medium to large scale web applications using .NET, ASP/+, COM, Visual Basic, SQL Server, and Windows 2000.

Mathew Reynolds is an in-house author for Wrox Press writing about and working with visually all aspects of Microsoft .NET. He is also a regular contributor to Wrox’s ASPToday, C#Today and Web Services Architect.

John Roth began his career like so many in the industry as that guy who knows the computer stuff, the one who could whip up a macro as fast as Julia Childs could tuck into a Souffle. Realizing he could make a living having fun, he started his own company.

Bill Sempf is an experienced internet strategist with a ten-year track record of using technology to help organizations accomplish specific business objectives. He is a Microsoft Certified Professional, Certified Internet Business Strategist, and member of the International Webmaster’s Association.

Bill Sheldon is a software architect and engineer originally from Baltimore, Maryland, currently living with his wife in Southern California. Holding a degree in Computer Science from the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT), he has been professionally employed since resigning his commission with the US Navy following the Gulf War.