Visual Basic .NET Class Design Handbook

Since the announcement of Visual Basic NET, a lot has been made of its powerful new object-oriented features. However, very little discussion has been devoted to the practice of object-oriented programming at its most fundamental level - that is, building classes. The truth is, whatever code you write in Visual Basic NET, you are writing classes that fall within the class hierarchy of the NET Framework. This book was conceived as a guide to help you design these classes effectively, by looking at what control we have over our classes, and how Visual Basic. NET turns our class definitions into executable code. Ask anyone : designing effective classes that you do not have to revisit and revise over and over again is an art. This Handbook aims to give you a deep understanding of the implications of all the decisions you can make in designing a class, so you are equipped to develop classes that are robust, flexible, and reusable. This, book assumes that you are already familiar with the syntax of Visual Basic NET. It assumes that you have already used it to write code and that you are familiar with your chosen development tool and know how to run and compile VB. NET code. You should also be aware of NET's basic object-oriented mechanisms.