Who Should Read This Book

This book is intended for programmers of all levels. It describes the Visual Basic .NET language from scratch, so you don’t need experience with previous versions of the language. The book also covers many intermediate and advanced topics. It covers topics in enough depth that even experienced developers will discover new tips, tricks, and language details. After you have mastered the language, you may still find useful tidbits throughout the book, and the reference appendixes will help you look up easily forgotten details.

The chapters move quickly through the more introductory material. If you have never programmed before and are intimidated by computers, then you might want to read a more introductory book first. If you are a beginner who’s not afraid of the computer, then you should have few problems learning Visual Basic .NET from this book.

If you have programmed in any other language, then fundamentals such as variable declarations, data types, and arrays should be familiar to you, so you should have no problem with this book. The index and reference appendices should be particularly useful in helping you translate from the languages you already know into the corresponding Visual Basic syntax.