This book "Application Development using Visual Basic and .NET" gives an innovative dimension of pragmatic approach to application development using VB. NET. This book is a part of the Integrated .NET Series from Object Innovations and Prentice Hall PTR. This book provides methodical exposure to the VB .NET language from the foundation. This book is appropriate for experienced programmers, providing a concrete, concise and in-depth introduction to VB. NET with a lot of example programs and case studies that continues through many of the chapters.

This book covers all the essential topics of VB .NET in detail along with thrilling case studies. The book wraps the topics such as .NET Fundamentals, VB .NET language essentials, Inheritance, Exceptions, Collections, Interfaces, Events, Attributes, Windows Forms, Windows Forms Controls, GDI+, ADO.NET, ASP.NET, Web Forms, Web services, Interoperability, Security and more!

Organization of this Book:

This book is organized into six major parts and is structured to make it easy for you to navigate to what you need to learn.

Part 1 - .NET Architecture Overview
Part 2 - VB .NET Language
Part 3 - Fundamentals of Windows Forms
Part 4 - Fundamentals of .NET Framework
Part 5 - Advanced UI programming using VB .NET
Part 6 - .NET Applications

Let us observe these six parts in detail.

The Part1 offers an orientation to the overall architecture and features of .NET. The first two chapters, provides a fine introduction to .NET Framework and the programming model of the .NET Framework.

The Part2 presents the core features of VB .NET. The chapters 3-6, talks about VB .NET programming language including data types, object oriented programming features available in VB .NET and inspects the interactions between VB .NET and .NET Framework. Visual Basic .NET supports many new or improved object-oriented language features such as inheritance,
overloading, the Overrides keyword, interfaces, shared members, and constructors. The third chapter in this part provides an in-depth coverage of object oriented features of VB .NET. The running Acme Travel Agency case study is introduced in chapter 5, which will give you a clear picture about how concepts work together when you build .NET applications.

Part3 covers the fundamentals of Windows Forms. Windows Forms is the new platform for Microsoft Windows application development, based on the .NET Framework. This framework provides a clear, object-oriented, extensible set of classes that enables you to develop rich Windows applications. The System.Windows.Forms namespace contains classes for creating Windows-based applications that take full advantage of the rich user interface features available in the Microsoft Windows operating system. Chapters 7 and 8 provides a systematic coverage on the core topics such as Windows Forms, including Form design, controls, events, menus, toolbars, dialog
boxes etc.

The Part 4 gives details about fundamental topics in .NET framework. Chapter 9 explains about assemblies and deployment in detail. The chapter 10 provides a systematic coverage on the core topics such as metadata, serialization, threading, attributes, asynchronous programming, remoting, memory management etc.

The Part 5 explores the advanced topics in UI programming with VB .NET. The chapter 11 examines the topic GDI+ in an in-depth approach. Chapter 12 speaks about some advanced topics such as MDI, visual Inheritance, ActiveX controls in .NET applications etc.

Part 6, consisting of chapters 13 to 17, cover central parts of the .NET framework that are constructive during realistic application development using VB .NET. Database access is an important topic. The .NET Framework provides database support with a new database technology known as ADO.NET. There are two central components of ADO.NET that accomplish data access: the DataSet, and the .NET data provider, which is a set of components including the Connection, Command, DataReader, and DataAdapter objects. You can access data sources in either a connected or disconnected mode. The chapter 13 guides you step by step and give a clear picture about all these topics in an excellent way. The chapter 14 gives you the information about the fundamentals of ASP.NET, including the ASP.NET architecture, server controls, configuration, database access, state in ASP.NET applications etc. The chapter 15 covers some advanced useful topics such as SOAP and Web services, which is in the path of revolutionizing the software world. Web services provide a robust mechanism for heterogeneous systems to interoperate. The chapter 16 covers .NET security in detail. It covers all the vital topics including User-Based, Code Access security, Role-Based security etc. The final chapter17 provides the information how to use existing COM objects (Unmanaged) within managed applications and expose-managed objects
to existing COM (Unmanaged) applications. In the Appendix, the topics such as Visual Studio .NET and Tracing and Debugging techniques in .NET are covered nicely.

As a Conclusion this book gives all the necessary details to develop realistic enterprise applications using VB .NET. It gives experienced developers the practical insight they need to build applications in a pragmatic way. In-depth coverage of .NET framework, Windows Forms, ADO.NET, GDI+, ASP.NET Web Forms, Web services makes this book unique. This book covers all the essential topics in a comprehensive, clear, example-rich practical way for experienced developers!

this book wastes over 10 chapters producing command line applications, useful for teaching the basic concepts may be but this is VISUAL basic not "commandline-basic", it does explain the basic concepts though

After browsing and comparing a dozen of VB.NET books in bookstore, I decided to order this book on Amazon.com. After read a half of the book, I like it very much for its step-by-step manner, clear explanation of important concepts, good organization of materials, and good code examples/case studies. In addition, this book has a "sister book" on C# written by the same author (Introduction to C# Using .NET). There are so many similarities between those 2 books. When you finish one or two chapters on one book you can easily learn the similar stuff in the other book.

I like this book because this book provides in-depth introductions to VB.NET language and to Windows Forms.This book introduces object-oriented concepts early and includes a case study on object-oriented programming. This book is appropriate for programmers who do not already have a strong background in object-oriented programming. This book is perfect for programmers who have basic knowledge in languages such as Visual Basic and COBOL programmers. But previous knowledge of Visual Basic is not indispensable.This book is not only for the beginners but also aims for experienced programmers by providing a concrete, concise and in-depth introduction to VB.NET with a lot of example programs.

The book presents the concept of object-oriented programming and talk about the important elements of object-oriented analysis and includes a case study. this book clearly defines in-depth, example-rich and provides a hands on introduction to the VB.NET using .NET. Using real-world examples and a detailed case study, this book helps you to master in VB.NET from the ground up or rapidly migrate to VB.NET from earlier versions of Visual Basic.