In a few of my examples, I have been forced to use some things in programming samples that we haven't covered yet. The book "jumps off the edge of the world" with this in the next section (and Michael Halvorson, the author, apologizes for it just like I do). So as you read through the rest of the chapter, bear in mind that you're not expected to understand everything right now. But we have to open up some of these topics at some point and now seems like a good time.
One of them is the "Windows Form Designer Generated Code" section. As the book states, ALL of this was totally hidden and inaccessible in previous versions of Visual Basic. But VB.NET makes a really great move in opening up this code because this lets you modify the code in those RARE (and I emphasize RARE) cases where your problem really demands it. For those of you who want to dive in right now and find out more about it, I recommend the About Visual Basic article that explains it, Regional Issues.
The sample program Data Types is a fun one to run and learn with - especially since you just have to run the program to get the main point. You'll quickly see why there are different numeric data types available in Visual Basic.
