Getting Started with VB.NET You can use VB.NET to create three different types of programs: • Web applications • Windows applications • Console applications The .NET platform is web-centric. The VB.NET language was developed to allow.NET programmers to create very large, powerful, high-quality web applicationsquickly and easily. The .NET technology for creating web applications is calledASP.NET. ASP.NET, the next generation from ASP (Active Server Pages), is composed of twoMicrosoft development technologies: Web Forms and Web Services. While thedevelopment of fully realized web applications using these technologies is beyond thescope of this book, learning the basics of the VB.NET language will certainly get youstarted in the right direction. VB.NET is generally acknowledged to be one of the lan-guages of choice for ASP.NET development. Typically, you’ll create an ASP.NET application when you want your program to beavailable to end users on any platform (e.g., Windows, Mac, Unix). By serving yourapplication over the Web, end users can access your program with any browser.