Beginning VB 2008 From Novice to Professional

T he first computer programming book I read was titled Programming Windows 3.0 by Charles Petzold. This was around the time when Microsoft Windows 3.0 (circa 1992) once and for all showed the industry that Microsoft was a company with a future. Writing code for Windows back then was complicated by many things: lack of documentation, 16-bit architecture, and the necessity of buying a compiler separate from the software development kit (SDK). Charles’s book tied everything together and solved the problem of how to write a program for Windows. Now the problems are quite the opposite: we have too much documentation, we have 64-bit architectures, and everything including the kitchen sink is thrown into a development envir- ment. Now we need to figure out what we actually need. We have too many options—too many ways to solve the same problem. What I am trying to do with this book is the same thing that Charles did for me when I first started out, and that was to help me figure out what I needed to write code. This book is about explaining the Visual Basic programming language in the context of solving problems. Visual Basic has become a sophisticated programming language that can achieve many goals, but you are left wondering what techniques to use when. This book is here to answer your questions. This book is not a reference to all of the features of the Visual Basic programming language.

This book is for anyone who wants to write good Visual Basic 2008 code, even if you have never programmed before. Writing good code can be a challenge, there are so many options, especially in a language like Visual Basic. If you want to really get the best from a programming language you need to know which features work best in which situations and understand their strengths and weaknesses. It is this understanding that makes the difference between coding and coding well. Beginning VB 2008 has been written to teach you how to use the Visual Basic programming language to solve problems. From the earliest chapters, and from the first introductory concepts, you'll be looking at real-world programming challenges and learning how Visual Basic can be used to overcome them. As you progress through the book the problems become more involved and interesting while the solutions become correspondingly more complex and powerful as Visual Basic features interact to achieve the results that you want. By the time you've finished reading this book and worked through the sample exercises, you'll be a confident and very competent Visual Basic programmer. You will still have many explorations of the .NET Framework API to look forward to in your future career, but you will have a firm foundation to build from and you will know exactly where to go to find the things that you need to progress confidently in your projects. Christian Gross is dedicated to helping his readers understand every detail of Beginning VB 2008. You can contact him via Skype (christianhgross) if you have bought this book and have a question about something Christian discusses. If Christian is available when you contact him, he will even try to answer you right away!

A table of contents is not available for this title.

Christian Gross is a consultant with vast experience in the client/server world. He has consulted for Microsoft on DNA solutions, and he has held consulting positions with Daimler Benz, Microsoft, NatWest, and other major corporations. Gross was a contributor to Professional Active Server Pages, Professional SQL Server 6.5 Administration, Professional NT Internet Information Server Administration, and Programming Microsoft Windows 2000 Unleashed. He is the author of A Programmer's Introduction to Windows DNA.