Introduction

"What would you attempt to accomplish if you knew you would not fail?"

I liked that quote and thought it was fitting for this chapter. I wonder if Brian Walker, the "Rocket Guy" from Bend, Oregon, attended Gilkey International Middle School? Walker is building a rocket that he plans to launch into space; perhaps by the time you are reading this he will have succeeded.

While creating custom components is not nearly as challenging as launching a homemade rocket into space, the concept of "the sky is the limit" is an excellent metaphor for building custom components. You can create whatever components you want or need ”you are limited only by your imagination . Microsoft's Visual Studio .NET offers tremendous support for building custom controls and components for Windows and the Web.

In this chapter you will learn just about everything you need to know about building components, including the basics of component building as well as how to professionally package and integrate those components into Visual Studio .NET for consumption by other programmers. The only thing I left out was your imagination ”you have to supply that. I hope that while reading this chapter you are inspired by the words the Gilkey kids see every day.