Learning to Program Using Visual Basic 2008
In this course, you’ll learn to use Visual Studio 2008 to explore the Visual Basic language. The course starts with a quick overview of the .NET platform, examining assemblies, Microsoft Intermediate Language, Visual Studio profiles, XML comments, IntelliSense, and debugging. From there, you’ll learn all the language features that you must internalize in order to create full-featured Web or Windows applications that make best use of the .NET platform. You’ll learn about data types, variables, and operators, along with all the important flow control structures. You’ll work through several examples demonstrating the power of the .NET Framework, and dig into creating and consuming your own classes and objects. The course moves on to working with data structures, such as arrays and collection classes, before finishing up with discussions of generics, handling exceptions and working with delegates and events. The course concludes by introducing the new LINQ-oriented features added to the .NET Framework 3.5, including anonymous types, lambda expressions, and more. By the end of this course, you will understand the important basic concepts that will allow you to start creating the applications you need.
In this course, you will learn how to…
- Build and debug applications using Visual Studio 2008.
- Create and use variables, operators, and data types.
- Find and use the classes you need within the .NET Framework.
- Manage flow control within your code, branching and looping as needed.
- Create and consume classes and objects.
- Add and consume properties and methods in your classes.
- Make use of .NET's object-oriented features, such as overloading, inheritance and interfaces.
- Store, retrieve, and manipulate multiple values using arrays.
- Work with .NET generics.
- Make best use of the .NET Framework's support for collection classes.
- Handle exceptions in your code.
- Create and use delegates, and understand how they relate to events.
- Use anonymous types, lambda expressions, extension methods, object initializers, and implicit type declaration.
Prerequisites
This course assumes that students have some programming background. No specific experience with Visual Studio 2008 or the .NET Framework is required. As with any such course, the more experience you bring to the course, the more you’ll get out of it. This course moves quickly through a broad range of programming topics, but it does not require any prior .NET skills.
Getting Started
- Thinking about .NET
- Using Visual Studio 2008
- Debugging and Handling Exceptions
Data Types and Variables
- Introducing Variables and Data Types
- Working with Variables and Data Types
Using the .NET Framework
- Using .NET Framework Classes
- Working with Strings
- Working with Dates and Times
Branching and Flow Control
- Branching in Code
- Repeating Code Blocks
- Unconditional Branching
Classes and Objects
- Introducing Objects and Classes
- Creating Your Own Classes
- Working with Classeses
Properties and Methods
- Overview of Properties and Methods
- Properties
- Methods
Object-Oriented Techniques
- Inheritance
- Interfaces
- Organizing Classes
Working with Arrays
- Introducing Arrays
- Manipulating Arrays
- Creating Indexers
Delegates and Events
- Motivating Delegates
- Introducing Delegates
- Working with Events
Generics
- Introducing Generics
- Generics and Arrays
- Generic Interfaces
- Generic Constraints
- Generics and Lists
Handling Exceptions
- Perspectives and Exception Handling
- Getting Started with Exception Handling
- Catching Specific Exceptions
- Raising Errors
- Running Code Unconditionally
- Creating Exception Classes
Collection Classes
- Generics, Collections, and Interfaces
- The Generic List
- Working with Dictionaries, Stacks, and Queues
- Creating Your Own Generic Collection Classes
New Language Features
- LINQ and Languages
- Implicitly Typed Local Variables and Object Initializers
- Lambda Expressions, Extension Methods, and Anonymous Types
