Introduction

Microsoft Visual Basic 2010 is an important upgrade and enhancement of the popular Visual Basic programming language and compiler, a technology that enjoys an installed base of millions of programmers worldwide. Visual Basic 2010 is not a stand-alone product but a key component of Microsoft Visual Studio 2010—a comprehensive development system that allows you to create powerful applications for Windows, the Web, handheld devices, and a host of other environments. Whether you purchase one of the commercial editions of Visual Studio 2010 (described later in this Introduction) or you download Visual Basic 2010 Express for a free test-drive of the software, you are in for an exciting experience. The latest features of Visual Basic will increase your productivity and programming prowess, especially if you enjoy using and integrating information from databases, entertainment media, Web pages, and Web sites. In addition, an important benefit of learning Visual Basic and the Visual Studio Integrated Development Environment (IDE) is that you can use many of the same tools to write programs for Microsoft Visual C++ 2010, Microsoft Visual C# 2010, Microsoft Visual Web Developer 2010, and other popular products.

INTRODUCTION

C# is a relatively new language that was unveiled to the world when Microsoft announced the first version of its .NET Framework in July 2000. Since then its popularity has rocketed, and it has arguably become the language of choice for both Windows and Web developers who use the .NET Framework. Part of the appeal of C# comes from its clear syntax, which derives from C/C++ but simplifies some things that have previously discouraged some programmers. Despite this simplification, C# has retained the power of C++, and there is now no reason not to move into C#. The language is not difficult and it’s a great one to learn elementary programming techniques with. This ease of learning, combined with the capabilities of the .NET Framework, make C# an excellent way to start your programming career. The latest release of C#, C# 4, which is included with version 4 of the .NET Framework, builds on the existing successes and adds even more attractive features. The latest release of Visual Studio (Visual Studio 2010), and the Express line of development tools (including Visual C# 2010 Express) also bring many tweaks and improvements to make your life easier and dramatically increase your productivity. This book is intended to teach you about all aspects of C# programming, from the language itself, through Windows and Web programming, to making use of data sources, and finally to some new and advanced techniques. You’ll also learn about the capabilities of Visual C# 2010 Express, Visual Web Developer 2010 Express, and Visual Studio 2010, and all the ways that these products can aid your application development.

The book is written in a friendly, mentor-style fashion, with each chapter building on previous ones, and every effort is made to ease you into advanced techniques painlessly. At no point will technical terms appear from nowhere to discourage you from continuing; every concept is introduced and discussed as required. Technical jargon is kept to a minimum; but where it is necessary, it too is properly defined and laid out in context.

The authors of this book are all experts in their field, and are all enthusiastic in their passion for both the C# language and the .NET Framework. Nowhere will you find a group of people better qualified to take you under their collective wing and nurture your understanding of C# from first principles to advanced techniques. Along with the fundamental knowledge it provides, this book is packed full of helpful hints, tips, exercises, and full-fledged example code (available for download at p2p.wrox.com) that you will find yourself returning to repeatedly as your career progresses.

We pass this knowledge on without begrudging it, and hope that you will be able to use it to become the best programmer you can be. Good luck, and all the best!

INTRODUCTION

It has been said that Sir Isaac Newton was the last person to know everything. He was an accomplished physicist (his three laws of motion were the basis of classical mechanics, which defi ned astrophysics for three centuries), mathematician (he was one of the inventors of calculus and developed Newton ’ s Method for fi nding roots of equations), astronomer, natural philosopher, and alchemist (okay, maybe the last one was a mistake). He invented the refl ecting telescope, a theory of color, a law of cooling, and studied the speed of sound.

Just as important, he was born before relativity, quantum mechanics, gene sequencing, thermo dynamics, parallel computation, and a swarm of other extremely diffi cult branches of science.

If you ever used Visual Basic 3, you too could have known everything. Visual Basic 3 was a reasonably small but powerful language. Visual Basic 4 added classes to the language and made Visual Basic much more complicated. Versions 4, 5, and 6 added more support for database programming and other topics such as custom controls, but Visual Basic was still a fairly understandable language, and if you took the time you could become an expert in just about all of it.

Visual Basic .NET changed the language in much more fundamental ways and made it much harder to understand every last detail of Visual Basic. The .NET Framework added powerful new tools to Visual Basic, but those tools came at the cost of increased complexity. Associated technologies have been added to the language at an ever - increasing rate, so today it is impossible for anyone to be an expert on every topic that deals with Visual Basic.

To cover every nook and cranny in Visual Basic you would need an in - depth understanding of database technologies, custom controls, custom property editors, XML, cryptography, serialization, two - and three - dimensional graphics, multi - threading, refl ection, the code document object model (DOM), diagnostics, globalization, Web Services, inter - process communication, work fl ow, Offi ce, ASP, Windows Forms, WPF, and much more.

This book doesn ’ t even attempt to cover all of these topics. Instead, it provides a broad, solid understanding of essential Visual Basic topics. It explains the powerful development environment that makes Visual Basic such a productive language. It describes the Visual Basic language itself and explains how to use it to perform a host of important development tasks.

It also explains the forms, controls, and other objects that Visual Basic provides for building applications in a modern windowing environment.

This book may not cover every possible topic related to Visual Basic, but it does cover the majority of the technologies that developers need to build sophisticated applications.

The .NET Framework, as the most significant technology for developers around right now, we would not be exaggerating. .NET is designed to provide an environment within which you can develop almost any application to run on Windows, while C# is a programming language that has been designed specifically to work with the .NET Framework. By using C#, you can, for example, write a dynamic web page, a Windows Presentation Foundation application, an XML Web service, a component of a distributed application, a database access component, a classic Windows desktop application, or even a new smart client application that allows for online/offline capabilities. This book covers the .NET Framework 4. If you are coding using any of the prior versions, there may be sections of the book that will not work for you. We try to notify you of items that are new and specific to the .NET Framework 4.

Don’t be fooled by the .NET label in the Framework’s name and think that this is a purely Internet-focused framework. The NET bit in the name is there to emphasize Microsoft’s belief that distributed applications, in which the processing is distributed between client and server, are the way forward. It is also important to understand that C# is not just a language for writing Internet or network-aware applications. It provides a means for you to code up almost any type of software or component that you need to write for the Windows platform. Between them, C# and .NET have revolutionized the way that developers write their programs and have made programming on Windows much easier than it has ever been before.So what’s the big deal about .NET and C#?

Introduction

Why does the world need Yet Another Web Framework?

This is the question that is most likely on your mind —  or perhaps it’s what you were thinking when you saw this book sitting on the shelf. We each asked ourselves this many times over the last few years. Indeed there are many frameworks out there today fl  avored with every buzzword the industry can think of. In short, it’s easy to be skeptical. Yet as we, the authors, delve deeper into the latest and greatest web framework, we’re each starting to realize just how far the industry has come in the last 10 years. Rob began programming for the Web with Classic ASP in 1997 and was giddy with excitement. When .NET came out, he remembers running around his offi  ce, stopping everyone from working and explaining that the world just tilted on its axis.

We all feel the same way about ASP.NET MVC. Not because it’s “something different” but because it offers developers the ultimate chance to “do it their way.” You don’t like the way the platform renders the View? Change it! Just about every part of the ASP.NET MVC Framework is “swappable” —  if the shoes pinch, get different shoes. Don’t like ties? Why not a bow tie? You’re totally in control. ASP.NET MVC is a web framework that comes with a bunch of conventions to make your life easier when you follow them, but if you don’t want them, the framework is quick to step out of your way so that you can get your work done in the way you like.

This book is going to go into the “out-of-the-box” experience you’ll have with ASP.NET MVC, but more importantly you’ll learn practical ways that you can extend ASP.NET MVC with your own magic —  then hopefully share that magic with others.

Because of this extensibility and attention to “doing it your way,” we’re happy to embrace Yet Another Web Framework and hope you are willing to come along with us for the ride.