All the examples in this book are written in Visual Basic.NET. Why, you ask, have we decidedto use Visual Basic exclusively since the .NET platform supports a plethora of languages? Why not pepper the text with examples in C#, Jscript, and maybe even Eiffel? We decided toconcentrate our efforts on only one language to simplify things and to keep the book to a reasonable length. While it’s certainly nice to be able to develop ASP.NET applications using anumber of different languages, let’s face it: Most programmers prefer to program in a singlelanguage. But why have we decided to use Visual Basic? After all, isn’t C# now Microsoft’spreferred language? Quite the contrary: Visual Basic is now on equal footing to C++ and thenew C#. In addition to this fact, we have chosen to use Visual Basic.NET in this book for sev-eral reasons. Visual Basic is the most popular programming language in the world. It’s also bythe far the most common language that existing ASP developers have used to create “classic”ASP pages. Finally, it’s the language that the authors of this book cut our teeth on—the language that we personally prefer to use. More than likely, you fall into one of three categories of Visual Basic (VB) developers: 1. You have little or no experience developing applications with Visual Basic or the VBScript scripting language. 2. You have considerable experience developing ASP applications using VBScript but little or no experience with VB proper. 3. You have considerable experience using the Visual Basic language (and perhaps VBScript as well). This chapter attempts to introduce the Visual Basic.NET language to you regardless of whichof these three groups you fall into. For VB novices, this chapter will bring you up to speed in a hurry. For VBScripters, this chapter will help you make the jump from VBScript to VisualBasic. And finally, for the savvy VB developer, this chapter will help you scope out thechanges made to your trusty old language.