Murach's Beginning Visual Basic .Net
Authors: Anne Prince
Venue:  (2002)

: This book is for anyone who wants to learn how to use VisualBasic .NET for developing business applications. 5 WAYS THE CONTENT GIVES YOU A PROFESSIONAL START If you're a beginner, you'll learn how to code, test, and debugobject-oriented Visual Basic programs in the first seven chapters. That'ssection 1 of this book, and no other book gets you started that fast withsuch a wide range of skills. In section 2, you'll learn how to develop graphical user interfaces at aprofessional level. This includes the use of common controls, multi-documentinterfaces, and GUI enhancements like menus, toolbars, and help information. In section 3, you'll learn how to use the .NET classes to work with dates,strings, arrays, collections, structures, files, and XML. You'll also learnthe skills you need for object-oriented programming. These are theprogramming skills that every professional should have. In section 4, you'll learn how to use ADO.NET and the disconnected dataarchitecture of the .NET platform to develop database applications withbound controls, queries, and parameterized queries. Although there's a lotmore to database programming than that, this will get you off to a terrificstart. In section 5, you'll learn how to develop web applications and create anduse web services. Here again, there's a lot more to web programming thanthat, but this will get you started right. 4 WAYS OUR INSTRUCTIONAL APPROACH INSURES YOUR SUCCESS To help you learn how to develop applications at a professional level, thisbook presents 18 business applications as examples. That way, you can seethe relationships between the Visual Basic code, objects, properties,methods, and events that an application requires, which is essential to yourunderstanding. In contrast, most competing books present trivialapplications that have little resemblance to applications in the real world,and that limits your learning potential. To solidify your skills, the exercises at the end of each chapter guide youthrough the development of some of the book's applications. They alsoencourage you to experiment and challenge you to apply what you've learnedin new ways. To give you a maximum amount of practice in a minimum amount oftime, you start many of these exercises from partial applications that youdownload from our web site. To help you learn more by reading less, all of the information in this bookis presented in "paired pages" with the essential syntax, guidelines, andexamples on the righthand page and the perspective and extra explanation onthe left. Programmers tell us how much they like this approach because itlets them quickly find what they're looking for. This is particularly usefulfor a language like Visual Basic because you simply can't remember thehundreds of details that are required for effective programming. After you read the first section of this book plus chapter 8, you can readthe chapters in section 2, 3, 4, or 5. In other words, you don't have toread all 20 chapters in sequence. We refer to this as "modularorganization," and it lets you get the training you need when you need it.Yes, there are some contingencies between some of the chapters, but we letyou know about them whenever they're critical.