VB.NET - visual basic

 what r the vb .net features?..................

Visual Basic .NET provides the easiest, most productive language and tool for rapidly building Windows and Web applications. Visual Basic .NET comes with enhanced visual designers, increased application performance, and a powerful integrated development environment (IDE). It also supports creation of applications for wireless, Internet-enabled hand-held devices. The following are the features of Visual Basic .NET with .NET Framework 1.0 and Visual Basic .NET 2003 with .NET Framework 1.1. This also answers why should I use Visual Basic .NET, what can I do with it?

Powerful Windows-based Applications

Visual Basic .NET comes with features such as a powerful new forms designer, an in-place menu editor, and automatic control anchoring and docking. Visual Basic .NET delivers new productivity features for building more robust applications easily and quickly. With an improved integrated development environment (IDE) and a significantly reduced startup time, Visual Basic .NET offers fast, automatic formatting of code as you type, improved IntelliSense, an enhanced object browser and XML designer, and much more.

Building Web-based Applications

With Visual Basic .NET we can create Web applications using the shared Web Forms Designer and the familiar "drag and drop" feature. You can double-click and write code to respond to events. Visual Basic .NET 2003 comes with an enhanced HTML Editor for working with complex Web pages. We can also use IntelliSense technology and tag completion, or choose the WYSIWYG editor for visual authoring of interactive Web applications.

Simplified Deployment

With Visual Basic .NET we can build applications more rapidly and deploy and maintain them with efficiency. Visual Basic .NET 2003 and .NET Framework 1.1 makes "DLL Hell" a thing of the past. Side-by-side versioning enables multiple versions of the same component to live safely on the same machine so that applications can use a specific version of a component. XCOPY-deployment and Web auto-download of Windows-based applications combine the simplicity of Web page deployment and maintenance with the power of rich, responsive Windows-based applications.

Powerful, Flexible, Simplified Data Access

You can tackle any data access scenario easily with ADO.NET and ADO data access. The flexibility of ADO.NET enables data binding to any database, as well as classes, collections, and arrays, and provides true XML representation of data. Seamless access to ADO enables simple data access for connected data binding scenarios. Using ADO.NET, Visual Basic .NET can gain high-speed access to MS SQL Server, Oracle, DB2, Microsoft Access, and more.

Improved Coding

You can code faster and more effectively. A multitude of enhancements to the code editor, including enhanced IntelliSense, smart listing of code for greater readability and a background compiler for real-time notification of syntax errors transforms into a rapid application development (RAD) coding machine.

Direct Access to the Platform

Visual Basic developers can have full access to the capabilities available in .NET Framework 1.1. Developers can easily program system services including the event log, performance counters and file system. The new Windows Service project template enables to build real Microsoft Windows NT Services. Programming against Windows Services and creating new Windows Services is not available in Visual Basic .NET Standard, it requires Visual Studio 2003 Professional, or higher.

Full Object-Oriented Constructs

You can create reusable, enterprise-class code using full object-oriented constructs. Language features include full implementation inheritance, encapsulation, and polymorphism. Structured exception handling provides a global error handler and eliminates spaghetti code.

XML Web Services

XML Web services enable you to call components running on any platform using open Internet protocols. Working with XML Web services is easier where enhancements simplify the discovery and consumption of XML Web services that are located within any firewall. XML Web services can be built as easily as you would build any class in Visual Basic 6.0. The XML Web service project template builds all underlying Web service infrastructure.

Mobile Applications

Visual Basic .NET 2003 and the .NET Framework 1.1 offer integrated support for developing mobile Web applications for more than 200 Internet-enabled mobile devices. These new features give developers a single, mobile Web interface and programming model to support a broad range of Web devices, including WML 1.1 for WAP—enabled cellular phones, compact HTML (cHTML) for i-Mode phones, and HTML for Pocket PC, handheld devices, and pagers. Please note, Pocket PC programming is not available in Visual Basic .NET Standard, it requires Visual Studio 2003 Professional, or higher.

COM Interoperability

You can maintain your existing code without the need to recode. COM interoperability enables you to leverage your existing code assets and offers seamless bi-directional communication between Visual Basic 6.0 and Visual Basic .NET applications.

Reuse Existing Investments

You can reuse all your existing ActiveX Controls. Windows Forms in Visual Basic .NET 2003 provide a robust container for existing ActiveX controls. In addition, full support for existing ADO code and data binding enable a smooth transition to Visual Basic .NET 2003.

Upgrade Wizard

You upgrade your code to receive all of the benefits of Visual Basic .NET 2003. The Visual Basic .NET Upgrade Wizard, available in Visual Basic .NET 2003 Standard Edition, and higher, upgrades up to 95 percent of existing Visual Basic code and forms to Visual Basic .NET with new support for Web classes and UserControls.

Let see Advantages of VB.NET

1. First of all, VB.NET provides managed code execution that runs under the Common Language Runtime (CLR), resulting in robust, stable and secure applications. All features of the .NET framework are readily available in VB.NET.
2. VB.NET is totally object oriented. This is a major addition that VB6 and other earlier releases didn't have.
3. The .NET framework comes with ADO.NET, which follows the disconnected paradigm, i.e. once the required records are fetched the connection no longer exists. It also retrieves the records that are expected to be accessed in the immediate future. This enhances Scalability of the application to a great extent.
4. VB.NET uses XML to transfer data between the various layers in the DNA Architecture i.e. data are passed as simple text strings.
5. Error handling has changed in VB.NET. A new Try-Catch-Finally block has been introduced to handle errors and exceptions as a unit, allowing appropriate action to be taken at the place the error occurred thus discouraging the use of ON ERROR GOTO statement. This again credits to the maintainability of the code.
6. Another great feature added to VB.NET is free threading against the VB single-threaded apartment feature. In many situations developers need spawning of a new thread to run as a background process and increase the usability of the application. VB.NET allows developers to spawn threads wherever they feel like, hence giving freedom and better control on the application.
7. Security has become more robust in VB.NET. In addition to the role-based security in VB6, VB.NET comes with a new security model, Code Access security. This security controls on what the code can access. For example you can set the security to a component such that the component cannot access the database. This type of security is important because it allows building components that can be trusted to various degrees.
8. The CLR takes care of garbage collection i.e. the CLR releases resources as soon as an object is no more in use. This relieves the developer from thinking of ways to manage memory. CLR does this for them.

Advantages

• Option Strict – Prevents unintended type conversions. This means that you cannot accidentally assign an ‘Integer’ value to a ‘String’ variable; however, this is not always foolproof. VB.Net does allow some unintended type conversions, such as an integer value could be placed in a ‘Long’ variable.
• Named Indexers support – Examples would be properties with parameters.
• Support of legacy keywords – Although some keywords have either been discontinued or their usages completely changed there still remains a huge amount of support of legacy keywords; this is useful for converting legacy projects to the current language specifications. Many will say that the VB.Net conversion wizard has many pitfalls; this is true, however, it does provide a starting point in the conversion process that many other languages do not provide.
• Handling Pointers indirectly – This provides less opportunity of instability in the produced application; aka produced applications are more secure and stable.
  Cannot handle unmanaged code – This provides a more stable and secure production of code.
• Easy to use Rapid Application Design (RAD) interface – Within a matter of minutes a complete Graphical User Interface (GUI) can be produced; thus requiring less programming time and less design time.
• Project wizards – When creating a new project, or just adding a new form or button, the environment will automatically generate the default coding to have the objects appear; in some cases there are wizards that can provide default coding to have some functionality within the application. This translates to a working application can be designed and coded in a fraction of time than some other languages.
• Large Talent Pool – Since there are so many programmers that know VB you can have a fairly easy time discussing obstacles you run across in your programming and find ideas on how to bypass them; in the same token you may also find a larger number of books that cover a wide variety of topics (general and specialty) and there are an enormous number of websites that cover a wide variety of topics and other means of support.

Disadvantages

• Cannot handle pointers directly – This can be a disadvantage because there is more required coding and thought to handle a pointer. Additional coding results in additional CPU cycles; which in turn requires additional processing time; which results in slower applications.
• Large Talent Pool – Since VB is so easy to learn there is a significantly larger pool of competition; thus, there can be more programmers applying for the same employment or project and this can ultimately drive the market value of the programmer’s services down.
• Intermediate Language (IL) compilation – These types of compilers can be easily decompiled (aka Reverse Engineered); there is little that can be done to deter decompiling of the application, and nearly nothing that can be done to prevent it.
• Just-In-Time (JIT) compiler – JIT compiling is the way the computer can interpret the IL compilation. This is essential to running the application. This means the target computer will be required to have JIT and that the application can receive performance degradation because of the extra CPU cycles required to use JIT.
• Large Libraries – Because VB is an IL there is a large number of libraries required for the JIT compiler to interpret the application. Large libraries require more hard drive space, more computing time and most of all it can be a nuisance if the application is being deployed over the internet and the user must obtain these libraries in addition to the files of the compiled application.

These are just some of the advantages and disadvantages of using VB. You will find during your course of time in the programming world there are many opinions and each will have strong cases as to why to use or not use VB. I think the MSDN web article, before mentioned, says it best in that when comparing C# with VB.Net that it is a personal preference. In particular you should keep in mind that both languages have access to the same libraries and .Net structures. It will ultimately come down to syntax choices and in some cases what resources are available to you to learn the language. In both case commit to the language and look to learn others in the future to compliment what you already know.

hi,

Some new features of VB.NET

1. Full support for object oriented programming.
2. Structured error handling capabilities.
3. Access to .NET Framework.
4. Powerful unified Integrated Development Environment (IDE).
5. Inherent support for XML & Web Services.
6. Better windows applications with Windows Forms.
7. New Console capabilities of VB.NET.
8. New Web capabilities with Web Forms.
9. Immense power of tools & controls (including Server Controls).
10. Interoperatibility with other .NET complined languages.
11. Better database programming approach with ADO.NET.

... and many more. The list is very long. Now we have to figure out that how important role VB will play in future? The answer is there in the words of Bill Gates once again -

"The next 10 years will be an amazing time for software developers. The advancements in the way we develop, deploy, and use applications will be as profound as the architectural shift from DOS- to Windows-based programming. Visual Basic.NET will provide the foundation for building the solutions that enable a new age of truly distributed computing on the Internet.

Microsoft sees the Visual Basic community as a core part of this vision. If you're new to this community, I welcome you to what promises to be an incredibly exciting era. If you're a seasoned Visual Basic developer, I thank you for continuing to make it the world's most popular development tool. I'm confident that Visual Basic.NET will give you the power to write cutting-edge software for tomorrow's Internet."

http://www.vbdotnetheaven.com/UploadFile/dagarwal/VBDotNET04072005092416AM/VBDotNET.aspx
for detail check this
http://www.startvbdotnet.com/dotnet/vbnet.aspx

Problems with VB 6.0

1. No capabilities for multithreading.
2. Lack of implementation inheritance and other object oriented features.
3. Poor error handling capabilities.
4. Poor integration with other languages such as C++.
5. No effective user interface for Internet based applications.

In VB.NET all these shortcomings have been eliminated. we will discuss how VB.NET implements all these features in our subsequent articles one by one. In fact VB gets the most extensive changes of any existing language in the Visual Studio suite. Let us talk about the major features VB.NET has developed.

Some new features of VB.NET

1. Full support for object oriented programming.
2. Structured error handling capabilities.
3. Access to .NET Framework.
4. Powerful unified Integrated Development Environment (IDE).
5. Inherent support for XML & Web Services.
6. Better windows applications with Windows Forms.
7. New Console capabilities of VB.NET.
8. New Web capabilities with Web Forms.
9. Immense power of tools & controls (including Server Controls).
10. Interoperatibility with other .NET complined languages.
11. Better database programming approach with ADO.NET.