Visual Basic^® Programming for .NET:
Hands-On

Developing .NET Business Applications

• Preparing an effective layered application architecture
• Implementing a Visual Basic solution with Visual Studio
• Separating application concerns into Visual Basic projects and assemblies
• Strong naming assemblies with Visual Studio

Object-Oriented Programming with Visual Basic

Designing classes with encapsulation

• Coding classes with fields and public properties, methods and events
• Instantiating objects with constructors and object initialisers
• Linking objects with associations
• Crafting classes visually with the Visual Studio class designer
• Creating shared, overloaded and extension methods

Applying inheritance

• Identifying when to use inheritance
• Coding inheritance hierarchies with Inherits
• Overriding base class functionality with Protected, Overridable and Overrides

Employing polymorphism

• Creating abstractions with interfaces and MustInherit classes
• Attaching the Implements clause or MustOverride modifier
• Invoking polymorphic behaviour
• Implementing INotifyPropertyChanged and IDataErrorInfo

Engaging the .NET Framework

Common Language Runtime (CLR)

• CLR architecture and services
• Managing memory and garbage collection
• Compiling Visual Basic into Intermediate Language
• Handling errors with Try/Catch/ Finally
• Throwing exceptions to enforce correct client behaviour

Surveying the .NET Framework Class Library (FCL)

• Visual Basic primary types: String, Integer, Double, Date, Boolean, Object
• Comparing value and reference types
• Representing sets of data with .NET arrays and generic collections: List(Of T), BindingList(Of T)
• Leveraging data annotation attributes for EF and UI validation
• Matching complex patterns with Regular Expressions

Programming .NET user interfaces

• Designing ASP.NET Web pages and adding controls
• Working with the ASP.NET page life cycle and events
• Employing key ASP.NET features: Master Pages, Security and Validation
• Integrating data access into ASP.NET with data source controls

Constructing .NET desktop applications

• Laying out Windows Forms and controls
• Responding to user interface events
• Implementing master/detail data binding
• Displaying data entry errors with Error Provider

Accessing Data with Entity Framework and LINQ

Connecting to databases with ADO.NET

• Working with Connection, Command and DataReader
• Integrating data access into ASP.NET Entity Framework
• Releasing disposable objects

Mapping objects to databases with ADO.NET Entity Framework

• Demystifying the database, model and code-first approaches
• Automating object-relational mapping with DbContext and DbSet
• Representing associations with foreign key mappings
• Lazy and eager loading-related objects
• Persisting an object graph into the database

Integrating query into Visual Basic with LINQ

• Constructing LINQ statements
• Filtering, sorting, grouping and reshaping data: Where, Order By, Group By and Select
• Building custom objects from LINQ queries with anonymous classes
• Working with expression and lambda function LINQ syntax
• Harnessing LINQ with collections and Entity Framework

Deploying Visual Basic Applications

• Employing .NET configuration and Visual Basic My.Settings
• Packaging ASP.NET Web applications with Visual Studio
• Publishing Windows applications with Click Once