Chapter 1 - Writing Your First Program

If you have some experience with VB 6, you'll find that Visual Studio has changed as much or more than the rest of the .NET world. And it's changed for the good!

The "Microsoft Press" aspects of our text start to show up here, however. The text makes it seem like the new VS.NET is sooooo good that we have almost been translated into heaven when we use it.

But there are a couple of things that can trip you up.

As we read Chapter 1, I'll try to point out both a few of the hazards as well as going beyond the book to a few things that were not covered.

Hopefully, those of you who had to install VB.NET met with success! While our text is really great at explaining VB AFTER it's installed, it's strangely quiet about all the cartwheels and handsprings you have to do to get it installed. Most of the installation problems are there to make sure that nobody, but nobody, has a copy of VB that they didn't pay for!!! (Nary a leaf falls upon the Earth but that Microsoft makes a penny of revenue from it's falling!)

Ah well! In truth, back in the wilder days of software, there was something wrong when half the copies of VB were basically stolen and half were paid for. (But now that it's all paid for, why isn't it half the price?)