Introduction

Visual Basic 2008 is Microsoft's latest version of the highly popular Visual Basic .NET programming language, one of the many languages supported in Visual Studio 2008. Visual Basic 2008's strength lies in its ease of use and the speed at which you can create Windows Forms applications, WPF Windows applications, web applications, WPF Browser applications, mobile device applications, and web services.

In this book, we introduce you to programming with Visual Basic 2008 and show you how to create these types of applications and services. Along the way you'll also learn about object-oriented techniques and learn how to create your own business objects and Windows controls.

Microsoft .NET Framework provides Visual Basic 2008 programmers with the capability to create full object-oriented programs, just like the ones created using C# or C++. The .NET Framework provides a set of base classes that are common to all programming languages in Visual Studio 2008, which provides you with the same capability to create object-oriented programs as a programmer using C# or C++.

This book will give you a thorough grounding in the basics of programming using Visual Basic 2008; from there the world is your oyster.

Who Is This Book For?

This book is designed to teach you how to write useful programs in Visual Basic 2008 as quickly and easily as possible.

There are two kinds of beginners for whom this book is ideal:

  • You're a beginner to programming and you've chosen Visual Basic 2008 as the place ...

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