Visual Basic .NET Class Design Handbook

Since the announcement of Visual Basic .NET, a lot has been made of its powerful new object-oriented features. However, very little discussion has been devoted to the practice of object-oriented programming at its most fundamental level - that is, building classes. The truth is, whatever code you write in Visual Basic .NET, you are writing classes that fall within the class hierarchy of the .NET Framework. Visual Basic .NET Class Design Handbook was conceived as a guide to help you design these classes effectively, by looking at what control we have over our classes, and how Visual Basic .NET turns our class definitions into executable code.

Ask anyone: designing effective classes that you do not have to revisit and revise over and over again is an art. This Handbook, the first in the series, aims to give you a deep and thorough understanding of the implications of all the decisions you can make in designing a class, so you are equipped to develop classes that are robust, flexible and reusable.

Chapter 1: Defining Types, investigates the role of Types in .NET and the different kinds of Types available to you. Chapter 2: Type Members, explains how Visual Basic .NET defines type members. Chapter 3: Methods, explores the fundamental role of methods as containers of program logic. Chapter 4: Constructors and the Object Lifecycle, introduces the role of Constructors and their effective use in addition to Object cleanup and disposal. Chapter 5: Properties, explains when and how to use properties and indexers to encapsulate data. Chapter 6: Events and Delegates, introduces the .NET events system and how it works. Chapter 7: Inheritance and Polymorphism, investigates how to control and exploit inheritance in our Types. Chapter 8: Code Organisation and Metadata, explains how to logically and physically organise code through namespaces and assemblies

Aimed at those with some previous exposure to VB .NET, Visual Basic .NET Class Design Handbook is an effective guide to the new object-oriented features of the language. This concisely packaged tutorial will let you get up to speed with the latest and greatest in VB .NET's support for objects.

While there are any number of beginner's books for VB .NET, this one aims higher, with unique coverage of more advanced class design features. The text begins with a thorough guide to the data types available in VB .NET while introducing essential new language enhancements like inheritance and delegates. The authors next delve into modeling classes with data members, exploring all the options for scoping and sharing data in classes. After covering these "nouns" of class design, the authors next turn to methods (or verbs), starting with constructors. A standout section here is a thorough discussion of new conventions of passing by value and reference in VB .NET and how to pass strings and arrays effectively.

One of the strongest chapters in this book looks at the object life cycle, with in-depth information on a variety of constructor options, plus several design patterns (like Singleton and Factory), which shows how the new VB .NET can measure up to other object-oriented programming languages. Several later sections on new .NET features like properties, delegates, and events show how to use these features correctly. (A short case study using a banking application explores the options when it comes to event handling.) Final chapters demonstrate using inheritance, both with classes and through interfaces. The book closes with an in-depth discussion of deployment in .NET with full coverage of options for assemblies.

With plenty of short code samples and readable tables listing essential language keywords, this title is aimed squarely at the more experienced VB developer. Its concise format and considerable expertise on the object-oriented features of VB .NET makes this title an excellent choice for anyone serious about class design in this new language. --Richard Dragan