VB.NET has a major lead in object-oriented programming. As a Visual Basic programmer we were required to write a separate class module to implement a simple oops functionality. Features given were also very limited. Now when we talk about VB.NET, our form module itself is a class. We can derive a ‘form’ from another ‘form’ which will have the same properties, methods and objects of base form. We can change the functionality of any object by overriding that specific function. We have constructors for our form. I know you must be wondering by now, am I talking about the C++? No. All these features are of VB.NET.
CLR (Common Language Runtime) as discussed in earlier articles is a very good common base for development. It gives common functionality support to all the languages supporting .NET.
So ASP.NET, Windows Forms, Web Forms, ADO.NET and using entire functionality of Base Class Library is available to VB.NET also. We can make use of Visual Studio.NET for Rapid Application Development.
Web development Features
When the Internet based development was increasing to major extent, visual basic was used only for component development and ASP was used for Web based user interface. Now VB.NET can be used for the user interface of web based development. ASP.NET will use either VB.NET or C# for code snippets and it will be compiled code.
Winforms/WebForms
Windows forms are basically meant for GUI development for client-server applications. These components are similar to visual basic form components. There are some additional functions provided like Visual Inheritance, Control anchoring and Docking, Many Accessibility functions, and powerful graphics with GDI+. Web Forms also do have similar functionality apart from the fact that those are for web based development.
Most of the redundant syntax is removed. Some new statements are added for Structured Exception Handling like try-catch-finally etc.