VB.NET

Anything free like StyleCop for VB?

svickn — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 19:07:14 GMT

I have been trying a suite of new tools to help with development, and have enjoyed FxCop. However, StyleCop doesn't work with VB as far as I know. Is there anything similar that is free for use for VB?

The new features of VB .NET for VS2010

svickn — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 17:08:52 GMT

I found this article in my google reader today:

http://blogs.msdn.com/vbteam/archive/2008/11/02/vb-2010-unveiled-at-pdc-2008-lisa-feigenbaum.aspx

it goes over some of the new features in VB for VS2010. Personally, I'm excited about the continuation of making VB a great laid back but powerful development environment. What do you guys think about the changes?

From the article:

Collection Initializers. Initialize collections in fewer lines of code! Use the "From" keyword followed by a list, rather than successive calls to the Add method.
- Dim y As New List(Of String) From {"hello", "world"}
- Dim x As New Dictionary(Of String, Integer) From {{"hello", 1}, {"world", 2}}
Array literals. Express arrays more concisely. Whereas before you used to have to write New Integer() {1,2,3}, now you can just write {1,2,3}. Leave it to the compiler to infer the type of the items in the array! This can be very convenient wherever you use arrays.
- 2D array: {{1,0},{0,1}}
- Jagged array: {({1,2,3,4}),({1,2})}
Statement lambdas. Visual Basic 2008 enabled lambda expressions. Now you can write multi-line lambda subs or functions as well!
- Define a Sub or Function anywhere a delegate is expected.
Auto-implemented properties. Eliminate 8 out of 9 of the lines you write for boiler-plate VB properties today!
- Expanded property syntax:
      Private m_Id As Integer
      Public Property Id() As Integer
          Get
              Return m_Id
          End Get
          Set(ByVal value As Integer)
              m_Id = value
          End Set
      End Property
- Auto-property syntax, new in VB 2010:
  Public Property Id() As Integer
- Auto-property syntax, with an initializer:
  Public Property Id() As Integer = 100
Removal of the line continuation character. Underscores are no longer needed in the most common line continuation scenarios. Can you believe it?!?!
- Attributes, argument lists, parameter lists, queries, and binary operators are some of the most common scenarios for an underscore. In VB 2010, you can now write these lines underscore-free!
- What are we to do with all those unused underscores? Check out http://www.unemployedunderscores.com
Generic co- and contra- variance. Code that used to generate errors will now work error-free! See Lucian Wischik's blog posts on this new feature, which has been enabled by CLR 4.0.
- http://blogs.msdn.com/vbteam/archive/2008/08/07/co-and-contra-variance-lucian-wischik.aspx
- http://blogs.msdn.com/lucian/archive/2008/10/02/co-and-contra-variance-how-do-i-convert-a-list-of-apple-into-a-list-of-fruit.aspx
No PIA. Deploy your Office applications without the bulky primary interop assemblies! VB 2010 will embed the Office types your application depends on, right into the app itself. No more need to deploy large PIAs.
Interop with dynamic languages. VB 2010 offers improved support to interoperate with dynamic languages. Dynamic and static languages each have their own benefits, libraries, and particular scenarios for which they are better suited. With VB 2010, you no longer need to choose just one! You can use dynamic languages directly from VB.Net as needed.

Unit testing in VB .NET, any good recommendations?

svickn — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 16:59:31 GMT

Hey again,

I'm working to bring my company out of the stoneage, and one of the tasks on my list is to implement more testing. I'm not going test driven, but I would like to implement unit testing for critical functions. The only tool I've seen talked about on a high degree is NUnit, and so far that's what I plan on checking out.

Anyone using something else for unit testing? Assuming a VS 2005-2008 not TS development environment working with VB .NET

Anyone know of good resources on custom ribbons?

svickn — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 15:23:41 GMT

Hey guys,

I'm looking to make a custom ribbon for a code contest and I'm having trouble locating good information about custom ribbons. Any resources you guys can recommend? Just looking to get started on a ribbon for Word really.

Good Resource Download on VB.NET

deepak kumarvasudevan — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 02:21:11 GMT

Just came across this nice resource download on VB.NET and thought I would share it with other interesting VB.NET developers too:

http://www.apress.com/resource/freeebook/9781893115996

It is a 4 Mb downloadable book from the website.

Comprehensive VB.NET Tutorial

deepak kumarvasudevan — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 02:23:28 GMT

Just came across this online tutorial on VB.NET and thought I would share with others so that you can load this URL in your favorites bookmarks manager:

http://www.homeandlearn.co.uk/NET/vbNet.html

It is almost a huge tutorial and hence may be used as a quick lookup on the desired features.

PosPrinter Receipt : Column Generation

Happyarimaan — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 12:17:59 GMT

Hi

Iam designing a receipt using Microsoft OPOS and VB.NET2008.

The receipt is to generated through a thermal/dotmatrix printer.

I have to provide a feature to the user by which he can stipulate the nos. of columns to be printed eg., 5,10,12.
How will I provide column generation function dynamically ?

I have previously hardcoded my columns in the program.

Also how can the column names(col. header) generated dynamically? I will only provide names eg.(1,"SRL NO.)(2,"NAME")etc.

I appreciate any help in this regard.

Visual Basic 2008 Programmer's Reference

LouVega — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 13:14:59 GMT

I was lucky enough to win this book at Code Camp this weekend and while I haven't had time yet to do a full review I'm looking forward to reading through it and seeing what's going on in VB 2008. Ful details on the book are below:

Visual Basic 2008 Programmer's Reference

Rod Stephens

ISBN: 978-0-470-18262-8

Paperback

1248 pages

February 2008

Once I've finished going through it I'll gladly post a review for those who might be interested!

Visual Studio 2008 Crashes When Applying Custom Attribute - BUG and Solution

KarlShifflett — Sat, 02 Feb 2008 17:01:09 GMT

Fellow VB.NET Developers,

I have found a VB.NET, VS2008 bug that pops up when applying custom attributes to properties.

I have posted the information here: http://karlshifflett.wordpress.com/2008/02/02/visual-studio-2008-crashes-when-applying-custom-attribute-bug-and-solution/

Nice article with code download and also includes a video demonstrating the bug and several solutions I came up with.

Authoring Visual Studio Debugger Visualizers Using VB.NET

KarlShifflett — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 20:42:11 GMT

Fellow VB.NET Developers,

I have posted a comprehensive article that includes two videos on Authoring Debugger Visualizers. The article also covers how to debug visualizers.

You can read the post on my blog here: http://karlshifflett.wordpress.com/2008/01/20/sample-series-authoring-debugger-visualizers/

or the Code Project article here: http://www.codeproject.com/KB/vb/AuthoringVisualizers.aspx

Enjoy developing your own visualizers!

New website/community for folks who love VB.NET

LouVega — Thu, 06 Dec 2007 13:49:25 GMT

My buddy Chris Williams has started a new web site/community dedicated to all things VB.NET

Chris is a VB.NET MVP and has been very involved in growing development communities wherever he goes so check out this new community - especially if you're into XNA as well since there are a number of XNA (VB) tutorials on there as well.

EDIT: It might help if I actually include the URL to his site: http://ilovevb.net/

great help for .net people

mukeshranjan — Tue, 17 Jul 2007 11:34:20 GMT

hello every one ..this is the link where u can have gr8 help for .net ..u can have compelte source code examples with description and also the complete executing tool and softwares in .net,vb,asp etc

Accessing all objects on a form

ParasWadehra — Wed, 25 Apr 2007 15:56:46 GMT

What is the syntax to access all object on a form.

I am looking for something like: "for all obj as Object on form1"

Can somebodyhelp?

A word of warning when upgrading VS2003 projects...

LouVega — Mon, 19 Feb 2007 03:50:26 GMT

I just ran into a weird issue upgrading a VS2003 project and posted about it in my blog - check it out if you're upgrading projects and running into problems, hopefully it will save you some headaches!

Simple Code Improvement "Contest"

LouVega — Thu, 21 Dec 2006 02:13:03 GMT

Here's some code that is purposefully messed up - It dumps out a really large string to the console screen, but it runs painfully slow.

What can you do to improve the code performance? My best improvement will be posted at a later date and it dumps this string out to the screen almost instantly when you hit F5.

Oh and since I don't have any prizes like David to give, the only thing you get from this is personal satisfaction!

   1:  Imports System.text

   2:  Module PerfJunkie

   3:      Private ReallyBigString As String

   4:      Sub Concatenate(ByVal Junk As String)

   5:          ReallyBigString = ReallyBigString & Junk

   6:      End Sub

   7:      Sub Main()

   8:          Dim start As Date = Now (you can ignore this line for now)

   9:          For i As Int16 = 0 To (Int16.MaxValue - 1)

  10:              Concatenate(CStr(i))

  11:          Next

  12:          Console.WriteLine(ReallyBigString)

  13:          Console.ReadLine()

  14:      End Sub

  15:  End Module

On my machine this code takes 11.265625 seconds

No VB.NET fans out there?

LouVega — Thu, 21 Dec 2006 01:59:05 GMT

Am I the only one? Or are the rest of you in hiding?