Major Differences in .NET 2.0

A list of major changes in the .NET Framework 3.0 was included early in this chapter. However, many developers who started with .NET Framework 1.0 or 1.1, and with the associated versions of Visual Basic, may not be familiar with differences between those versions and version 2.0 of the .NET Framework.

Here is a list of important additions and changes that first happened with .NET Framework 2.0/Visual Basic 2005, along with the chapter you should check for more information:

Open table as spreadsheet

Feature	Description	Chapter(s)
Edit and Continue	Allows you to make changes to code while you are running it in the integrated development environment (IDE) and have the changes take effect immediately. (This feature was available in VB6 and earlier, but was not available in Visual Basic 2002 or 2003.)	13
Partial classes	Allows code for a class to be split over multiple code modules	3
Generics	Allows generic collections to handle specific types, declared when the collection is created	7
ClickOnce	New deployment technology for deploying across the Internet, with automatic updating	22
“My” classes	Provides quick access to commonly used classes in the .NET Framework	8
IsNot keyword	Simplifies If statements that check whether an object is Nothing	2
Using keyword	Automates disposing of objects created in a section of code	5
IDE improvements	Exception manager, code snippets with automatic fill-in, improved IntelliSense, and autocorrect are a few of the new capabilities of the IDE.	13