Visual Basic Essentials

Microsoft .NET is an advance in programming technology that greatly simplifies application development, both for traditional, proprietary applications and for the emerging paradigm of Web-based services. .NET is a complete restructuring of Microsofts entire system infrastructure and represents a major learning challenge for programmers developing applications on Microsoft platforms.

This two-day intensive course is designed for the experienced programmer to help you quickly come up to speed on the Visual Basic language. It is current to Visual Studio 2008 and .NET 3.5, which introduces important new features such as local type inference, extension methods, lambda expressions and Language-Integrated Query (LINQ). The new features are covered in a new chapter.

This course concisely covers the essentials of .NET programming using Microsofts Visual Basic programming language. It starts with a brief chapter, .NET: What You Need to Know, which gets you up and running in the .NET environment with a minimum of fuss. The next two chapters cover Visual Basic language essentials and object-oriented programming in Visual Basic. The next chapter discusses how Visual Basic relates to the .NET Framework. The following chapter covers delegates and events. The course includes a succinct introduction to creating GUI programs using Windows Forms. The course concludes with a chapter covering the new features in Visual Basic. An appendix provides a tutorial on Visual Studio 2008.

The course is practical, with many example programs and a progressively developed case study. The goal is to quickly bring you up to speed in writing Visual Basic programs. The student will receive a comprehensive set of materials, including course notes and all the programming examples. The course includes an electronic supplement, provided as a PDF file, covering Visual Studio 2008

• The student should be an experienced application developer or architect. Some background in object-oriented programming would be helpful.

• Acquire a working knowledge of Visual Basic programming
• Learn about important interactions between Visual Basic and the .NET Framework
• Learn how to implement simple GUI programs using Windows Forms
• Gain a working knowledge of local type inference, object initializers, anonymous types, extension methods, lambda expression, LINQ, and other new features in Visual Basic 2008.

• 1. NET: What You Need to Know
  • .NET Executables and the CLR
  • A .NET Testbed for Visual Basic Programming
  • Visual Studio 2008

• 2. Visual Basic for the Sophisticated Programmer
  • First Visual Basic Console Application
  • Namespaces
  • Data Types
  • Conversions
  • Control Structures
  • Subroutines and Functions
  • Strings
  • Arrays
  • Console I/O
  • Formatting
  • Exception Handling

• 3. Object-Oriented Programming in Visual Basic
  • Classes
  • Access Control
  • Methods and Properties
  • Shared Data and Methods
  • Inheritance
  • Overriding Methods
  • Polymorphism
  • Operator Overloading

• 4. Visual Basic and the .NET Framework
  • Components
  • Interfaces
  • System.Object
  • .NET and COM
  • Collections
  • IEnumerable and IEnumerator
  • Copy Semantics in Visual Basic
  • Generic Types
  • Type-Safe Collections

• 5. Delegates and Events
  • Delegates
  • Random Number Generation
  • Events

• 6. Introduction to Windows Forms
  • Creating Windows Applications Using Visual Studio 2008
  • Partial Classes
  • Buttons, Labels and Textboxes
  • Handling Events
  • Listbox Controls

• 7. New Features in Visual Basic 2008
  • Local Type Inference
  • Object Initializers
  • Array Initializers
  • Anonymous Types
  • Partial Methods
  • Extension Methods
  • Lambda Expressions
  • Query Keywords

• Appendix A. Using Visual Studio 2008
  • Versions of Visual Studio
  • Overview of Visual Studio 2008
  • Creating a Console Application
  • Project Configurations
  • Debugging
  • Multiple-Project Solutions

• Appendix B. Learning Resources

Course exercises require Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 Standard Edition or higher. The preferred operating system is Windows XP. See the appropriate course Setup Guide for details.

A good minimal hardware profile for this course consists of a 2 GHz or better CPU, 512 MB of RAM, and at least 4 GB of free disk space for tools installation and courseware.