Visual Basic .NET: Introduction (for experienced programmers)

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Course Overview

The .NET Framework offers unprecedented flexibility and functionality in a virtual execution environment. Through an object-oriented approach to multitier system development, Visual Basic 2005 enables programmers to effectively and more fully exploit the .NET runtime environment.

This course provides the knowledge and techniques needed to build distributed Visual Basic applications. You develop the skills required to take advantage of a combination of component- and object-oriented syntax in VB to achieve increased reusability.

Audience

A familiarity with Visual Basic programming at the level of Course 502, " Introduction to Programming with .NET ", or equivalent experience in a programming language such as Visual Basic (any version), Java, C++ or C#, is assumed.

Skills Gained

• Build multitier applications in Visual Basic 2005 from reusable software components
• Exploit advanced language features, including interfaces, generics and exceptions
• Design object-oriented components with inheritance and polymorphism
• Create cross platform data access functionality with Web services
• Design and code Windows and Web user interfaces
• Build middle-tier components that access data using XML, ADO.NET and Web services

Course Outline

Developing Multitier Applications

• Dividing logical tiers into multiple components
• Implementing components with Visual Basic 2005
• Reusing components with different UIs
• Persisting component data into XML and databases

The .NET Framework

Common Language Runtime (CLR)

• CLR architecture and services
• Compiling VB code into Intermediate Language

Framework Class Library (FCL)

• Windows and Web Forms and controls
• File I/O
• Regular Expressions
• Data access with ADO.NET
• Heterogenous and generic collections

Improving Productivity with Visual Basic 2005

User interface design

• Web Forms and controls
• Automating data-driven application construction
• Web Forms with ASP.NET
• Validating Web Forms declaratively

VB 2005 Enhancements

• Documenting with XML code comments
• Edit and continue debugging
• Code snippets
• Debugger visualisation
• My namespace characteristics

Object-Oriented Programming

Encapsulation

• Designing classes with the Class Designer
• Protecting private data with properties
• Initialising data with constructors
• Creating shared and overloaded methods

Inheritance

• Implementing inheritance hierarchies
• Eliminating code duplication
• Overriding base class methods
• Accessing protected base class data
• Coding generic base classes

Polymorphism

• Types of polymorphism
• Interface-based programming
• Creating MustInherit base classes

Exceptions and Events

Designing and consuming events

• Responding to UI control interaction
• Creating custom business object events
• Handling events dynamically and statically
• Applying WithEvents and Handles
• The AddressOf operator

Structured exception handling

• Catching and deciphering exception messages
• Throwing exceptions in business objects
• Cleaning up resources with Finally blocks
• Automating cleanup with Using blocks

Data Manipulation with ADO.NET

The ADO.NET model

• Working with SQL Server and Oracle
• Connected vs. disconnected approaches
• The System.Data namespace
• Selecting the correct provider: SqlClient, OracleClient, OleDb, or Odbc

Programming ADO.NET objects

• Establishing a connection
• Executing commands with parameters
• Maximising performance with stored procedures
• Retrieving data with the DataReader
• Filling a DataSet with a TableAdapter
• Persisting data to XML

XML and Web Services

XML in .NET Framework

• Sequential and tree-based parsing
• Employing XmlReader and XmlWriter
• Responding to well-formedness errors

ASP.NET Web services

• Calling services from client code
• Adapting incompatible objects in Web services
• Mapping DataSets into Web services

Visual Basic .NET: Introduction (for experienced programmers) / VB05-4E