• Explains how to program in Visual Basic .NET, Whidbey release
• Allows experienced programmers to quickly move to the latest version of Visual Basic
• Describes useful namespaces for ADO.NET, XML, multithreading, Direct3D, cryptography, and reflection.
• Provides basic material suitable for beginners but also includes in-depth content for more advanced developers.

The second part of the book is a reference that quickly allows programmers to locate information for specific language features. The entries in these appendices allow the reader to quickly review the details of important programming, objects, properties, methods, and events.

The reference part of the book provides the following benefits:

• Summarizes the differences between Visual Basic .NET Whidbey and 2003 editions
• Covers Visual Basic syntax, grouped by purpose
• Describes overloaded versions of Visual Basic's most useful methods
• Gives the syntax for declaring subroutines, functions, generics, classes, and other important language concepts.

This kind of reference is particularly useful in Visual Basic .NET, given the additional complexity of the language options introduced with the Whidbey release.