Introduction
Welcome to the next era in .NET development. .NET has moved from a set of developer-focused tools and a runtime environment to the core of the latest Microsoft operating system. In 2002, Microsoft released .NET and introduced developers to a new paradigm for building applications. For Visual Basic it was not only a new environment, but really a new language.
Visual Basic .NET (as it was initially called) went beyond an overhaul. .NET changed core elements of the syntax affecting every aspect of development with Visual Basic. The entire runtime model shifted to a new common language runtime (CLR) environment and the language went from object-based to object-oriented. Although most people didn't recognize it, we were moving to a new language.
Now with the introduction of Windows RT, Microsoft has again shifted the paradigm. Not so much at the language level, but as it relates to how user interfaces are developed and work. The original runtime environment, although enhanced for .NET 4.5, risks being flagged as being on the path to that fatal “legacy” designator. Windows 8 introduces the concept of Windows Store applications, which are built on a version of the CLR that has different features, and that's important. Because while client applications may view the core CLR as legacy, server-based applications have probably never been in a position to leverage it more.
This book provides details about not only the latest version of Visual Basic and the new .NET Framework 4.5. More important, it carries this coverage to a new platform, Windows RT, and a new class of Windows Store applications. As a result the contents of this book have been turned upside down. This book doesn't just indicate that there are new Windows Store applications, but focuses in directly on how to build and deploy this new class of applications. The result is a very different book from the previous edition.
If you compare this edition to an older edition you'll immediately realize that this edition is visibly smaller. Just as you saw Visual Basic evolve nearly 10 years ago, .NET is going through an evolution of its own. The result was a need to refocus on what this book covers. This has resulted in a sea change with regard to where to focus coverage for Visual Basic.
The most noticeable omission from the book is in fact the original smart client development model—Windows Forms. When Microsoft introduced WPF it informally announced that the era of Windows Forms was ending. It has taken some time, and certainly support will continue for many more years, but the reality is that the evolution of Windows Forms is complete. The information around Windows Forms provided in past editions of this book is essentially complete. While one or two of the chapters do still reference Windows Forms in their samples, by and large the book has moved beyond the use of this technology.
The result was that Billy Hollis, who has a passion for user interface design, agreed to take on the rather significant task of re-imagining how to approach user interface design in a world that includes Windows RT. The new XAML-based interface design chapters are completely redone from the ground up and focused on teaching developers how to approach XAML development from the ground up. The last version of the book approached the user interface model from Windows Forms and transitioning to XAML. However, in this version the approach takes on XAML as the primary user interface development model. As such these chapters address Windows Store application development head-on, not as an afterthought.
However, Windows Forms wasn't alone in being moved into the past. We've eliminated several appendices, Microsoft Office (both VSTO and SharePoint) integration, and references to classic COM. Some, for example, development around Microsoft Office, is facing its own set of changes as Microsoft Office prepares to evolve. Others, such as classic COM and Windows Forms, are no longer technologies that developers should be targeting. We also found ourselves needing to change out how we addressed larger topics such as ASP.NET and Silverlight. The result is that this book is much more focused on building applications using Visual Basic that target Microsoft's core next generation of technologies.
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