Visual Basic 2005 is a development tool that you can use to build applications that perform useful work and look great within a variety of settings. Using Visual Basic 2005, you can create applications for the Windows operating system, the Web, hand-held devices, and a host of other environments and settings. The most important advantage of Visual Basic is that it has been designed to increase productivity in your daily development work—especially if you need to use information in databases or create solutions for the Internet—but an important additional benefit is that once you become comfortable with the development environment in Micro$oft Visual Studio 2005, you can use the same tools to write programs for Micro$oft Visual C++ 2005, Micro$oft Visual C# 2005, Micro$oft Visual J# 2005, and other third-party tools and compilers.

The popular STEP BY STEP approach provides hands-on guidance to beginning-level programmers and those new to Visual Basic, covering key features and fundamental techniques to accelerate their productivity. The companion CD includes data sets and sample code for all exercises.

Okay, all you VB6 developers–time's up. As of March 2005, Micro$oft no longer supports this version of Visual Basic. And you can't blame them. Three years ago, they introduced the .NET Framework–an elegant, powerful platform–along with the new component-based VB.NET language. But roughly five million of you decided to stick with VB6, mostly to maintain legacy Windows and COM projects.

Now, with the upcoming release of VB 2005, Micro$oft has several attractive reasons to upgrade that you'll find hard to resist, including the return of some VB6 features. And we have the perfect book to help you make the conversion: Visual Basic 2005 Jumpstart. Now, you can test-drive the beta version of VB 2005 with three hands-on projects that enable you to learn the syntax of this new language quickly.

Welcome to the new version of Visual Basic for 2005. As its name implies, Visual Basic is a visual way to create new programs for the Micro$oft Windows family of operating systems.

And though it is basic in many ways, the Visual Basic language is also very powerful. You can create new class libraries and XML Web services, as well as programs that you can use on your PC or your Web browser, or even your phone or PDA. Anything that can be done in Windows can be done in Visual Basic.

Visual Basic 2005 is Micro$ofts latest version of the highly popular Visual Basic .NET programming language, one of the many languages supported in Visual Studio 2005. Visual Basic 2005's strength lies in itsease of use and the speed at which you can create Windows applications, Web applications, mobile device applications, and Web Services.

In this book, we will introduce you to programming with Visual Basic 2005 and show you how to create the types of applications and services mentioned above. Along the way you'll also learn about object-oriented techniques and learn how to create your own business objects and Windows controls.

This book teaches Visual Basic 2005 developers the concepts and skills necessary to write VB 2005 database applications that can be used throughout their enterprises. Although the book touches on database design concepts, its focus is on using ADO.NET to access and manipulate data in relational databases. This book covers all data providers in ADO.NET briefly, but focuses on using the OleDb Data Provider for accessing Access databases, the SQLData Provider for accessing SQLServer databases, and the Oracle Data Provider for accessing Oracle databases. Most of the examples in this book involve writing database applications for SQLServer and Oracle.

This book was designed for the developer who wants to learn how to write database applications using Visual Basic 2005 and back-end databases such as Microsoft Access, Microsoft SQLServer, and Oracle.

This book is for Visual Basic developers. If you are a Visual Basic 6 developer, you should begin with Chapter 1, Microsoft .NET Framework Primer for the Visual Basic Developer, which will bring you up to speed on development for the .NET Framework. The remainder of the book covers the significant enhancements to Visual Basic that will make you more productive when developing applications.

Visual Basic 6 is your tool of choice, so why upgrade to the next version of Micro$oft Visual Studio .NET? This guide offers a focused, first look at the specific features and capabilities that you can exploit—using your existing skill set—for simpler coding, better application reliability, easier deployment, and other benefits. The authors, Visual Basic experts who’ve worked with Visual Studio .NET since its first beta, fully understand the adoption and code migration issues you’re facing. They offer inside insights on new features and tools, walk you through practical code examples, and provide expert guidance on how to make a successful, productive transition—without a daunting learning curve.

Visual Basic .NET Kick Start is a rapid-progression tutorial that presents Visual Basic .NET to working programmers already familiar with another programming language or tool. This book speeds through basic concepts and focuses on practical examples showing the advantages of Visual Basic .NET in ASP programming, application design and creation, and .NET Web Services development. Because previous versions of Visual Basic are so prevalent, this book pays special attention to issues developers face when moving from VB to VB.NET. Although Visual Basic .NET Kick Start assumes no knowledge of the .NET Framework, it skips the handholding and basic programming instruction associated with entry-level tutorials. Full of code examples, tips, and professional insights, this book is about maximum payoff with minimum effort for the working programming who wants to use Visual Basic .NET now.

Visual Basic has slowly evolved over the years, incorporating a variety of features and moving itself into the world of "enterprise" development, but everything was being built on top of an already existing foundation. This is not unusual; most development tools progress in this way, but it has the unfortunate side effect of garbage accumulation. New versions of the tool try to stay compatible with, and therefore have to keep all the less-than-perfect aspects of, the previous versions. To rewrite the language from scratch is almost unthinkable. The work required would be enormous and breaking compatibility with the user's existing code is bound to make you unpopular. The benefit of such a move would be a completely clean and new implementation that can keep the good and throw away the bad parts of the existing language.

Are you building Visual Basic .NET applications that interact with a database? If so, this book is an essential guide to understanding how to program and use databases for real world applications. It covers a vast array of topics, useful for both beginners and experts. Don't let this book leave your side.

This book goes beyond telling you "how" to program using Microsoft Visual Basic .NET, but explains the "why" behind the code, The authors provide real-world examples, such as a shopping cart system, that you can use as a foundation for your own systems. By understanding why you should design applications in a certain way, you can design more efficient and scalable systems. Throughout the book, Asli and Evangelos point out tips and tricks for your application design to improve performance, reusability and scalability.

With VB,Windows application development was no longer restricted to a privileged few. Anybody with moderate programming capabilities was able to develop a Windows application by dragging and dropping controls onto a form. In contrast to the more prevalent C and C++ programmers who wrote obscure code,VB programmers concentrated on writing applications that were meant to be prototypes. It is perhaps this ease of use and simplicity of language that gave VB the name of “toy” language. This is not the case anymore.

VB has come a long way. Since version 1.0, it has evolved from a toy language to a full-fledged Object-Oriented programming language. Today, with VB you are able to do almost everything possible with other programming languages. VB is finally a true-blue Object-Oriented language.

Visual Basic .NET Black Book is a comprehensive reference and problem-solving guide for Visual Basic programmers. It covers Visual Basic.NET tips, examples, and how-tos on everything from programming to managing the development of Visual Basic applications. It provides in-depth material on the new object-oriented features of Visual Basic .NET. Readers will also learn about the crucial Visual Basic tool set in detail including the best Visual Basic programming practices, from design tools to interface design. Using the popular Black Book format, this book provides in-depth analyses of VB.NET technologies and hundreds of immediate programming solutions making it an invaluable resource.