Introduction
Welcome to Sams Teach Yourself Visual Studio .NET 2003 in 21 Days! By going through the lessons over the next 21 days, you'll learn about the key components that make up Visual Studio .NET and the .NET Framework. The .NET Framework is a colossal technology, but over the next 21 days, you'll learn how to effectively use what you need to start writing applications immediately. Throughout the book, all the code examples are in both Visual Basic .NET and C#, so if you have a preference for one language, you can implement any of the code immediately.
How This Book Is Organized
Starting with the Visual Studio .NET IDE and writing Windows and Web applications, you'll dive right into Visual Studio .NET in the first 7 days of your 21-day journey. All the concepts that you learn in Week 1 are critical to writing applications using .NET. By the end of the week, you'll understand the ins and outs of writing, testing, debugging, and deploying Windows Forms and ASP.NET applications.
In Week 2, you get into the meat of .NET and learn how to access data, work with XML, and write components. By going through the lessons in Week 2, you'll be able to write data- and component-driven applications that can be accessed from the desktop, the Web, or through XML Web services.
Week 3 introduces you to some supporting tools that ship with Visual Studio .NET, but are less well known than topics such as data access and Web services. You'll learn how to automate the Visual Studio .NET IDE with the new automation capabilities in .NET, how to write data-driven reports using Crystal Reports, and how to use Visual SourceSafe from within the Visual Studio .NET IDE. You'll also learn about some lesser known but very powerful tools that ship with Visual Studio .NET, such as the Application Center Test tool that enables you to stress test your applications. You'll also get an introduction to object role modeling using Visio, which is a conceptual data-modeling platform that integrates with Visual Studio .NET and ODBC-compliant data sources.
Each day is designed to give you the information you need to start using Visual Studio .NET right away. I can't cover every aspect of the .NET Framework, but you don't need a book like that when you're just learning the tool. Everything I've written is geared toward what you need now, and each day I give you links to further information online that will supplement what you learned.
Speaking of online support, the popularity and acceptance of Visual Studio .NET and the .NET Framework have created an enormous online community of informational Web sites containing tons of great articles, code samples, and complete sample applications of every aspect of .NET development that you can think of. The best online resources I've found are
http://www.dotnet247.com— This site is unreal. It's a summary site that catalogs all the .NET sites on the Web, including Microsoft. Just type in a topic or keyword you're interested in, and I can almost guarantee you that all the articles on the Web related to that topic will come up in its Google search engine.
http://www.123aspx.com— This site is just like the dotnet247 site, except that it relates to ASP.NET-specific information. It's a hugely important resource to have at your fingertips when you need to get information fast.
http://msdn.microsoft.com— The million-page developer heaven. This site has not only thousands of .NET samples and articles, but it also covers all technologies from Microsoft, not just .NET. This should be your browser's home page, just to see what's fun and new every day for developers using Microsoft technologies.
http://www.angrycoder.com— This is not a sample Web site, but rather a .NET e-zine. It's not a site you'll go to every day, but you should check it out once a month to read some of the editorial pieces and personal anecdotes of other .NET developers. At a minimum, you'll get a good laugh reading some of the pieces, which is sometimes necessary when learning new technologies.
http://www.gotdotnet.com— This is Microsoft's .NET community portal. It has message boards, code uploads, and tons of samples. The best thing about this site is the .NET QuickStart tutorials are online and working, so you always have a reference place to go if you need access to the QuickStarts.
http://www.asp.net— This is Microsoft's ASP.NET community Web site. This site has great links to other sites, great downloads for server controls for ASP.NET, and an extremely active message board. This is a good place to get ASP.NET questions answered.
www.windowsforms.net— This is Microsoft's Windows Forms community site. I personally love Windows Forms because they provide a richer development environment for the applications than the browser does, and they can be run just like browser-based applications. So, make sure that you check out this site to get hard-core Windows Forms information.
I've been working with .NET since the alpha version. Since then, I've started a .NET user group in Florida that has grown from 30 people to more than 1,000, with monthly meetings in three different cities. So, as you start down the path of .NET, know that there is a lot of support and information out there to help you learn. You should find a user group in your area and get involved—there are many developers out there just like you. You can check out these resources for user groups in your area:
http://www.ineta.org— The International .NET User Group Association was founded to help user groups around the world get the resources and information they need to spread the word about .NET. You can go to this site and search by country, region, and state to find a user group in your area.
http://www.fladotnet.net— This is the user group I helped found in Florida. We have monthly meetings in Boca Raton, Miami, and Tampa, so if you're in Florida, you can go to the site and get info about the next meeting.
http://www.nonprofitways.net— I helped found this organization, which enables developers to write applications for not-for-profit organizations. A lot of developers aren't using .NET at work, but they're involved with user groups and other online communities. So, a couple of friends and I decided that we could funnel some of that excitement and energy to give something back to the world. This started as something for our local user group to work on, but has grown into a worldwide community. If you want to write some .NET code in real-life applications, check out the site and get involved!
My own site will have the code samples, fixes, errors and omissions, additional stuff I forgot about, and other goodies for this book at http://www.vbasp.net.
About This Book
This book covers all of the important aspects of using Visual Studio .NET to write VB.NET and C# applications. Visual Studio .NET is a vast product, with many features that are not obvious. By working through each day's lesson, you will be exposed to the important information you need to use Visual Studio .NET to develop great .NET applications. To learn each feature of Visual Studio .NET, the weeks are broken up in a logical fashion, which progressively leads you from the simpler aspects of the tool to the more complicated features. By the time you have completed the three weeks, you will have all of the ammunition you need to tackle any .NET project that you need to develop.
Who Should Read This Book
This book is broken down into three groups:
Novices
If you are new to .NET and programming in general, nothing is taken for granted in any of the days. The programming terms used are clear and concise, and the step-by-step approach to each day's work will help you complete each code sample and exercise in the book.
People who have used .NET
If you have been using .NET, you will be amazed at what Visual Studio .NET can offer to rapidly develop your applications. There are many features of VS.NET that most developers do not know about, especially when it comes to using XML and the data access tools. By going through each day's lesson, you will learn about the important features that the IDE offers to help you develop applications.
Experienced developers in other languages
If you are a seasoned developer coming from another language or development tool, this book will give you the facts about using Visual Studio .NET to write applications. Understanding Visual Studio .NET is paramount to efficiently developing .NET applications. Each day is organized to help you learn the tools and languages that you need to start writing .NET applications today.
How This Book Is Structured
This book is most effective when read over the course of three weeks. During each week, you will read seven chapters that present concepts related to Visual Studio .NET. Each day you will learn something new and interesting about using Visual Studio .NET. Though there are many topics covered, each day is designed to help you get up to speed quickly using the most important aspects of Visual Studio .NET. Along the way you will learn VB.NET and C#, and you will be doing hands-on exercises designed to give you real world implementations of the topics covered.
  | Conventions |
Note
A Note presents interesting, sometimes technical, pieces of information related to the surrounding discussion.
The VB.NET icon flags VB.NET code.
The C# icon flags code written in C#.
Text that you type and text that should appear on your screen is presented in bold monospace type: It will look like this.
This font mimics the way text looks on your screen. Placeholders for variables and expressions appear in monospace italic.
The end of each lesson offers commonly asked questions about that day's subject matter with answers from the authors, a chapter-ending quiz to test your knowledge of the material, and two exercises that you can try on your own.
You can email me anytime with any issues about the book or code you're running into trouble with at [email protected].