1. Visual Basic.NET Comprehensive Concepts and Techniques What’s new in VB.NET adapted from a presentation on Introduction to Visual Basic.NET by Jeff Quasney Course Technology

2. Introduction to Visual Studio.NET 2

3. 3 An Overview

4. Introduction to Visual Studio.NET 4 What’s New in Visual Studio.NET? IDE (Start page, common for ALL.NET languages) Application templates New editing tools (HTML, XML, XSL, CSS…) Cross-language debugging, Multiple languages per “Solution” New sample apps and documentation Strong focus on XML

5. Introduction to Visual Studio.NET 5 What’s New in Microsoft Visual Basic.NET? VB.NET was a rewrite, not an update New/changed data types –No Variant, CTS New/changed syntax –Dim, assignment, arrays, keywords… Application distribution

6. Introduction to Visual Studio.NET 6 What’s New in Microsoft Visual Basic.NET? (continued) Inheritance Exception handling (Structured exception handling) Overloading Multithreading Web development –Web services –Web applications (ASP.NET) ADO.NET

7. Introduction to Visual Studio.NET 7 Application Types Console Applications

8. Introduction to Visual Studio.NET 8 Application Types Windows Applications

9. Introduction to Visual Studio.NET 9 Application Types Windows Services

10. Introduction to Visual Studio.NET 10 Application Types Web Applications

11. Introduction to Visual Studio.NET 11 Application Types Web Services

12. Introduction to Visual Studio.NET 12 Application Types Components

13. Introduction to Visual Studio.NET 13 What is.NET?

14. Introduction to Visual Studio.NET 14.NET Framework

15. Introduction to Visual Studio.NET 15 Why.NET? Common classes Common security model –DLL “H E double-toothpicks” gone? –Side-by-side execution Garbage collection Multi-platform? New application types Language interoperability

16. Introduction to Visual Studio.NET 16 The Common Language Runtime Takes control of the application and runs the application under the operating system Microsoft Intermediate Language (MSIL)

17. Introduction to Visual Studio.NET 17 The Common Language Runtime MSIL is CPU/OS independent Compile once for multiple CPU’s/platforms –Take an EXE and run it on Linux –Ximian (?) is working on this Assembly and manifest concept –Xcopy installs –Side-by-side execution –Logically, all EXEs and DLLs act as DLLs

18. Introduction to Visual Studio.NET 18 The Common Language Runtime Registration info no longer in registry –Meta data stored in assemblies –Only distribute assembly.NET Framework required on user’s system Memory management Exception handling No IDL, no registration, no HRESULTS, no GUIDs, Replaces all COM plumbing

19. Introduction to Visual Studio.NET 19 What’s New in VB.NET?

20. Introduction to Visual Studio.NET 20 About Procedures Subs and functions need parentheses Use MyProc(“A parameter”) Not MyProc “A parameter” ByVal is now the default! Optional arguments need a default value –Sub DoWork(Optional ByVal i As Integer = 1) Return is used in Functions to return a value

21. Introduction to Visual Studio.NET 21 About IF Statements AndAlso and OrElse do short-circuiting If intX = 1 AndAlso intY = 2 Then In above example, second expression is not evaluated if intX is not 1

22. Introduction to Visual Studio.NET 22 About Object Declarations OLD Dim objCustomer As Store.Customer Set objCustomer = New Store.Customer NEW Imports Store Dim objCustomer = New Customer OR Dim objCustomer as Customer = New Customer

23. Introduction to Visual Studio.NET 23 About Scope New Block-level Scope Dim intX As Integer For intX = 1 To 5 Dim intZ As Integer MessageBox.Show(“Scope is important.”) Next intX MessageBox.Show(“intZ is out of scope!”)

24. Introduction to Visual Studio.NET 24 About Arrays Lower bound is always zero –Dim intA(5 To 8) no longer is possible –Option Base is gone as well Arrays have VERY useful methods Declare arrays by upperbound, not size – Same as VB6 –Dim strX(10) As String contains 11 elements Setting an array to another array is now done by reference –In VB6, this was done by value –Use Copy method of arrays to make an actual copy

25. Introduction to Visual Studio.NET 25 About Loops While…Wend changed to While…End While

26. Introduction to Visual Studio.NET 26 About Data Types All variables are objects. Variants are gone. Type a period after any variable in the IDE to see methods/properties Strings are never fixed length. They are destroyed and recreated by the CLR when value changes –Only one type of string variable for ALL languages No Currency data type. Now decimal. UDTs are gone –Use structures instead Structure statement replaces Type Structures support methods!

27. Introduction to Visual Studio.NET 27 Useful Options Option Strict On –Forces declarations –Forces data types to be same on both sides of = –Use it always. Get in the habit. Force your students to use it in assignments.

28. Introduction to Visual Studio.NET 28 About Operators New concatenation operators +, -, *, /, & intI += 100 intl -= 100

29. Introduction to Visual Studio.NET 29 About Controls Default properties of controls are GONE New way to set tab order Shape controls are gone –Use System.Drawing namespace

30. Introduction to Visual Studio.NET 30 About Menus and Help Menu editor –Create a menu and a context menu Help –Dynamic help is addictive

31. Introduction to Visual Studio.NET 31 Misc New control alignment tools New properties –Anchoring and AutoSize –Opacity of forms Printing –Several new, powerful printing controls –Print controls/objects get more complicated, but more powerful –Crystal Reports is included with Professional/Academic versions New way to set tab order

32. Introduction to Visual Studio.NET 32 What’s new in OO? Too much to mention Inheritance Polymorphism New syntax for creating properties Read-only, Write-only properties Aggregation is weird, though (just in VB) Constructor = Sub New() : Destructor = Sub Finalize() –Don’t assume you know when destructor is called

33. Introduction to Visual Studio.NET 33 What’s new in Databases? Too much to mention ADO.NET SqlClient namespace vs. OleDB namespace DataSet and DataTable DataReader Plea/Editorial: Please don’t use Data controls

34. Introduction to Visual Studio.NET 34 What will make you scratch your head? Line numbers are messed up Can’t print a form in design mode for a Windows form, but you CAN for a Web form Value of True (non-zero, not 1)

35. Visual Basic.NET Comprehensive Concepts and Techniques The End