Starting with VB.NET

• Overview of VB.NET in the modern .NET ecosystem: what’s changed, what remains.
• Installing Visual Studio, selecting VB.NET project templates.
• Exploring the IDE: Solution Explorer, code editor, debug windows, toolbox for Windows Forms.
• Creating your first “Hello World” VB.NET console application: structure of a VB.NET project, Main method, basic output, build & run.

Core language constructs

• VB.NET data types: Integer, Long, Short, String, Boolean, Date, Decimal, Double and Object; Variant is legacy VB terminology, not a VB.NET type
• Variable declaration and initialization: Dim, As, initialization rules.
• Control flow statements:
  • Conditional: If…Then…ElseIf…Else…End If
  • Select Case … Case … End Select
• Loops and iteration: For … Next, For Each … Next, While … End While, Do…Loop.
• Methods (Sub and Function): declaration, parameters, return values, overloading.
• Modules vs Classes: how VB.NET organizes code.
• Comments, regions, and best practices for code readability.

• Understanding classes and objects: definition, instantiation, namespaces.
• Properties, fields, methods, constructors.
• Encapsulation: Public, Private, Protected, Friend keywords.
• Inheritance: Inherits keyword, base class, derived class, method overriding (Overrides), base invocation (MyBase).
• Polymorphism: base class references, interface implementation.
• Interfaces: Implements keyword, multiple interfaces, when to use.
• Abstract concepts (MustOverride, MustInherit) where VB.NET supports them.
• Practical coding exercise: build a small class hierarchy (e.g., Shape → Circle, Rectangle) with shared behavior and polymorphic methods.

Libraries, queries and diagnostics

• Using the .NET class libraries in VB.NET: imports statements, namespaces (System, System.Collections.Generic, System.Linq).
• Exception handling: Try…Catch…Finally, Throw, custom exceptions.
• Collections and generics: List(Of T), Dictionary(Of TKey, TValue), etc.
• LINQ in VB.NET: query syntax and method syntax, filtering, projection, ordering, grouping. VB.NET specific LINQ support (e.g., Visual Basic query keywords)
• Working with files and I/O: reading/writing text files using System.IO.
• Debugging and error handling within Visual Studio: breakpoints, watches, exception settings.

• Introduction to Windows Forms: what it is, when to use it.
• Creating a Windows Forms project in Visual Studio (VB.NET).
• Form design: toolbox controls (Button, TextBox, Label, ListBox, DataGridView), layout, properties window.
• Event-driven programming: Click, Load and TextChanged events and the Handles keyword
• Designing a simple Form application: e.g., a basic data-entry form that stores input into a List(Of T) and displays it in a DataGridView.
• Validating input, handling exceptions, showing messages (MessageBox).
• Packaging and deployment basics: building .exe, setting application icon, configurations.

Review a prepared classic ASP.NET MVC application on .NET Framework, not ASP.NET Core.

• Overview of web development in VB.NET: where web fits, contrast to desktop.
• Introduction to ASP.NET MVC architecture: Models, Views, Controllers, routing.
• Inspect a prepared classic ASP.NET MVC VB project on .NET Framework
• Folder structure: Controllers folder, Models folder, Views folder, Shared folder.
• Creating a simple model class in VB.NET (e.g., Product with properties ID, Name, Price).
• Creating a controller in VB.NET: actions (Index, Create, Edit, Delete).
• Legacy VB Razor views (.vbhtml), HTML helpers and output encoding
• Data binding, form submission, model validation (DataAnnotations).
• Basic persistence: using in-memory collection for demo (full database integration beyond course scope).
• Demo: build a simple CRUD web application for the Product model.
• Discussion: when to choose web vs. desktop, and limitations/considerations (maintenance, hosting, platform support).

Compare desktop and legacy-web maintenance needs; review the small desktop application and identify further practice.