Advanced Visual Basic using Visual Studio 2008

VB308 : 5 Day Instructor-Led Course

Dive deeper into VB.NET and the .NET Framework with Visual Studio 2008

In this 5-day course designed for developers, attendees will enhance their current skills with the powerful new features available in Visual Basic and version 3.5 of the .NET Framework. Attendees will also learn and exploit all the new productivity features in Visual Studio 2008. Attendees will put these new skills into practice immediately while working as teams to complete projects on time. All projects will be managed via source control, and teams will be responsible for deployment strategies.

Should I attend?

This course is intended for developers who currently have experience programming in Visual Basic. Candidates will have strong experience using Visual Studio (2002, 2003, 2005, or 2008) and can easily manage solutions, projects, and code files. Candidates will also already know how to create custom class libraries (dlls), and know how to reference any external assembly in an existing project.

Qualification to attend can also be met by completing course VB208

What do I get?

Language features to be covered:

Feature

Description

Local Type Inference

When used with local variables, the Dim keyword instructs the compiler to infer the type of the variable or the array elements from the expression on the right side of the initialization statement.

Object Initializers & Anonymous Types

Enables object initialization without explicit calls to a constructor using New ... With keywords. Also a look at how to create types "on-the-fly".

XML

XML is now a first-class data type. Learn how to easily create, transform, modify, and query.

Extension Methods

Extend existing classes by using shared methods that can be invoked by using instance method syntax.

If Operator

Enables short-circuit evaluations based on two or three arguments.

Lambda Expressions

Enables inline expressions with input parameters that can be bound to delegates or expression trees.

LINQ - Query Keywords

This topic will also briefly cover

LINQ to SQL

Keywords that specify clauses in a query expression:

           From clause(s)

           Where clause (optional)

           Order By ordering clauses (optional)

           Join clause (optional)

           Select or Group clause

Partial Method Definitions

Partial types may now contain partial methods. Learn why and when this is practical.

Generics

The need for templated code and how to use existing types that utilize this feature. Also learn why and how to implement custom Generics.

Object Oriented Programming

Crash course on inheritance, abstraction, polymorphism, and how all these concepts convert to supporting real-world functionality.


.NET 3.5 Framework features to be covered:

Feature

Description

I/O

Learn how to read/write files using streams, stream readers, and stream writers.

Security

The basics of Code Access Security (CAS) and how to use cryptology to secure code and data.

XML

Brief overview of XML enhancements

New features in Visual Studio 2008 to be covered:

Feature

Description

Multi-targeting

Visual Studio 2008 enables you to specify a version of the .NET Framework for your project, .NET Framework 2.0, 3.0, or 3.5. The .NET Framework target of an application is the version of the .NET Framework that is required on a computer to enable the application to run on that computer.

IntelliSense

The Visual Basic code editor provides statement completion and Quick Info to support the new language constructs. Code snippets are also still fully supported.