Who This Book Is For

This book is written for anyone who's asked the question "What's new in .NET 2.0?" or, even more importantly, "What does it let me do now that I couldn't do before?" As the latest in the Developer's Notebook series of books, this book answers these questions without requiring you to wade through pages of remedial VB lessons or .NET theory.

The most important requirement for this book is a solid familiarity with VB .NET 1.0 or 1.1, and experience building .NET applications. Visual Basic 2005: A Developer's Notebook covers very little of the material that an experienced VB .NET 1.1 programmer already knows. Instead, this book aims to help you build on your current knowledge, rather than waste your time covering old material. If you're a VB programmer who hasn't made the jump to .NET yet, you'll find the labs in this book interesting, but you'll need to supplement your .NET knowledge with another book first. Try one of the many great introductions, such as Jesse Liberty's Programming Visual Basic .NET (O'Reilly) or my own The Book of VB .NET (No Starch Press).