1.2 What Is Visual Basic .NET?
Visual Basic .NET is the next generation of Visual Basic, but it is also a significant departure from
previous generations. Experienced Visual Basic 6 developers will feel comfortable with Visual
Basic .NET code and will recognize most of its constructs. However, Microsoft has made some
changes to make Visual Basic .NET a better language and an equal player in the .NET world. These
include such additions as a Classkeyword for defining classesand an Inheritskeyword for object
inheritance, among others. Visual Basic 6 code can't be compiled by the Visual Basic .NET compiler
without significant modification. The good news is that Microsoft has provided a migration tool to
handle the task (mostly, anyway). Code migration is explained in Appendix A. The Visual Basic .NET
language itself is detailed in Chapter 2.
Over the last several months I have spent almost all of my time playing with .NET and writing Visual
Basic .NET programs. As a user of Visual Basic since Version 4, I can tell you that I am pleased with
this new technology and with the changes that have been made to Visual Basic. In my opinion,
Microsoft has done it right.
1.3 An Example Visual Basic .NET Program
The first program to write is the same for all languages: Print the words hello, world
—Brian W. Kernighan and Dennis M. Ritchie, The C Programming Language
It has become a tradition for programming books to begin with a hello, worldexample. The idea is that
entering and running a program—any program—may be the biggest hurdle faced by experienced
programmers approaching a new platform or language. Without overcoming this hurdle, nothing else
can follow. This chapter contains three such examples: one that creates a console application, one
that creates a GUI application, and one that creates a browser-based application. Each example
stands alone and can be run as is. The console and GUI applications can both be compiled from the
command line (yes, Visual Basic .NET has a command-line compiler!). The browser-based application
requires a computer running Internet Information Server (IIS).
1.3.1 hello, world
This is the world's favorite programming example, translated to Visual Basic .NET:
Imports System
Public Module Hello
Public Sub Main( )
Console.WriteLine("hello, world"
End Sub
End Module
This version of hello, worldis a console application --it displays its output in a Windows commandprompt window. To compile this program, enter it using any text editor, such as Windows's Notepad,
save it in a file whose name ends with .vb, such as Hello.vb, and compile it from the Windows
command line with this command:

Interesting......been itching to learn VB.net though

its just a matter a decision and liking what you do