Visual Basic .NET and the .NET Platform: An Advanced Guide

Notably, this book is a direct translation of the author's C# book, C# and the .NET Platform, using the same chapters and many examples ported from C# to VB .NET. Readers can thus rest assured that this is tried-and-true material.

The author pitches the presentation at a fairly expert level, with plenty of coverage of object-oriented design, as well as a pretty thorough language tutorial. (The fact that it's possible to show VB .NET using the same features as C# demonstrates that the languages are now equals on .NET.) Troelson's tour offers good insight into the .NET Framework itself, with coverage of topics like Intermediate Language (IL), the Common Language Runtime (CLR), as well as deploying .NET components in assemblies. The book shows the three pillars of object-oriented programming--encapsulation, inheritance, and polymorphism--which are amply illustrated with code excerpts using objects for shapes, employee, and other simple classes. This book is also good at demonstrating how to get older COM and COM+ code to interoperate with new .NET components.

Later chapters turn toward building user interfaces, whether through traditional clients using Windows Forms (and graphics programming), or using ASP.NET and Web Forms (for which the authors supply a solid introduction) for building Web-based, thin clients. Final sections look at Web services, which are just as easy to create in VB .NET as with any other supported .NET language.

While this book assumes some programming knowledge on the part of the reader, it covers all the bases needed to use the new VB .NET and the .NET Framework effectively. It's a worthy choice for getting onboard with .NET and will be appreciated by any new VB .NET developer, as well as C# and VB6 developers making the transition to Microsoft's latest version. --Richard Dragan