Visual Basic .NET at Work

Book excerpt: Gain the tools to create 10 reusable enterprise projects utilizing the new features of VB.NET Going beyond the standard reference books, Tony Martin takes readers step-by-step through the process of creating ten reusable enterprise applications with the next version of Microsoft's leading programming language-Visual Basic.NET. Readers will start by building a standard application template, which will form the basis of all the projects. Martin explains how to combine VB.NET with other key technologies, such as Web Services, ASP.NET, XML, WebForms, and the Microsoft Mobile Framework, to solve the important issues corporate Visual Basic programmers face today. Microsoft Technologies CD-ROM includes complete source code for the projects in the book and the third-party tools required to build the projects. .NET Platform: The next big overhaul to Microsoft's technologies that will bring enterprise distributed computing to the next level by fully integrating the Internet into the development platform. This will allow interaction between any machine, on any platform, and on any device. Visual Basic.NET: The update to this popular visual programming language will offer greater Web functionality, more sophisticated object-oriented language features, links to Microsoft's new common runtime, and a new interface. ASP.NET: A programming framework (formerly known as Active Server Pages) for building powerful Web-based enterprise applications; can be programmed using VB.NET or C#. C#: Microsoft's new truly object-oriented programming language that builds on the strengths of C++ and the ease of Visual Basic; promises to give Sun's Java a run for its money.