Chapter 7. Working with ASP.NET and VB .NET
OBJECTIVES
Learn event-handling basics
Learn Visual Basic .NET data types
Learn to create procedures and classes
Use the StringBuilder class
When you start coding using the .NET Framework, you will find yourself faced
with many new concepts. Even if you are moving to .NET from the Visual
Basic 6 programming environment, you will find that many familiar features
now behave slightly differently, and these differences all have enough of a
twist to them that you will need to take some time to learn how the new and
modified features work.
Of course, one of the most important programming concepts in Visual Basic
is that of events. You need to learn about how events happen, as well as
what the parameters that the .NET Framework passes to event-handling
procedures are used for. Event handling is probably the most important
concept in any .NET application, whether you are writing a desktop
application or a Web application. Much of what you do as a developer
revolves around writing code in response to the user performing some
action. It is up to you to create the code that runs in response to these
user actions.
Manipulating data is another key area that you should understand before you
get too far along with your .NET programming. There are many different
types of data梥uch as text, numeric values, and objects梩hat you will need
to work with in your code. VB .NET supplies specific data types to help you
distinguish between all the different types. It is important you understand
what you can store into each data type and how you can convert one data
type to another.
Another important concept is that of classes and objects and their use.
Although classes are not new to most Visual Basic developers, the
techniques you employ to create and use them is somewhat different in VB
.NET than in Visual Basic 6. In this chapter, you will learn the basics of
creating a class, and you'll apply those concepts to the Northwind solution
that you have been building so far in this book.