Visual Basic.Net resources

Welcome to the HND Computing award Visual Basic.Net resources.

The material here comes primarily from the three programming modules:

• CP1035 Programming and Personal Skills 1

• CP1039 Programming and Personal Skills 2

• CP2007 Visual Programming.

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 Please Note: These pages on VB form a small part of the overall SCIT Wiki.  
 Please therefore ensure that any NEW pages that you create have names beginning with "VB".
 e.g. The link to the page about data types is shown as  "data types" 
 and coded as [[VB data types| data types]] (Note the "VB " prefix). 

Visual Basic.Net coding

Look here for information on VB syntax and coding practices.

Visual Basic.Net: sources, versions and common problem

SCIT has an agreement with Microsoft under their MSDN (Microsoft Developer Network) licence that allows students to download a copy of various software free of charge, for use during your studies. Be sure to read the instructions VERY carefully before you begin the process.

You will need to download a copy of Visual Studio.Net, which is a program development "environment"; that is it provides an editor where you can write and edit your program, together with facilities for compiling, testing, debugging and running the program. Visual Basic.Net comes as one language packaged within the Visual Studio.Net environment.

Versions of Visual Basic.Net

Microsoft are constantly updating their versions of Visual Studio and VB. At regular intervals they release a new version, which has extra features and abilities. These new versions are generally "backwards compatible" with previous versions (i.e. newer versions can load and run programs created in older versions - normally by converting the program to the new format. However, you will NOT be able to create a program in a new version, then run it in an older version.

In SCIT and on the student PCs we currently (2007-8) run two versions:

• Visual Basic.Net v2003 (from Visual Studio v2003) - older version
• Visual Basic.Net v2005 (from Visual Studio v2005) - newer version

If you install a newer version of Visual Studio/Basic than these, then you will be able to work through the exercises on the course, but you will not be able to run them in college, and staff will not be able to mark them. You have been warned!!

Common Problems with VB

There are some problems that often crop up with using VB.Net. Look here to see if we already have a solution to your problem. (If we don't have a solution yet, be sure to add your solution once you find it.)