VB.NET: A Laboratory Course teaches the reader how to program in Visual Basic from an object-oriented viewpoint, which is important becuase of the object-oriented flavor of VB.NET. The emphasis of this book is not on the fancy users interface tricks you can perform with VB.NET, but on the fundamentals of writing correct and efficient VB programs. The book provides a number of example programs that illustrate the concepts developed in the text, and the exercises at the end of each chapter help to reinforce the expository material from the chapter. Visual Basic is arguably the most popular computer programming language for application development in the United States and around the world today. Visual Basic is also an excellent language to teach as a "first" computer language because of its easy-to-learn syntax and flexibility. This book treats Visual Basic as a serious programming language and not as just another Windows application. One concern that is frequently voiced when discussing the differences between Visual Basic and C+++ is the level of object- oriented programming supported by Visual Basic. With the upcoming release of VB.net, the language will support all the major features of object- oriented programming- encapsulation, inheritance, and polymorphism.