Chapter 15. Encapsulation

You will learn the following in this chapter:

• How to design and refine a class object

• How to use the Private and Public access specifiers

• How to add a class to a project

• What overloading means

• How to write Public procedures

• What a class interface is

• How to write a program to test a class

• How to add a class to a library file

Until this point, the book has concentrated on teaching the fundamentals of programming in general. You have learned about variables and the various data types they may represent. You have learned about the different types of operators (for example, arithmetic, relational) and how they are used. You have also learned about program structures and loops and how to use them to control what a program does. Along the way, you have also learned about the objects that Visual Basic .NET makes available to you and how to use them. Dozens of other topics have also been discussed. You've come a long way to get to this point.

All the concepts you have learned thus far are applicable to almost any programming language. In this chapter, however, you'll start applying those concepts to object-oriented programming (OOP). This is where we leave the "old" languages behind and move into the 21st century. Although there are still a few hurdles to clear in your quest to master OOP, I think you will find your learning efforts well rewarded.