Visual Basic 2008 is a powerful language for solving a wide variety of programming problems. Recipes for accomplishing this are presented in this update to an earlier book by the same authors [1]. This book is definitely not a textbook for teaching Visual Basic programming, but rather a handy resource for programming with Visual Basic. There are 242 recipes arranged in 15 chapters. The flavor of the book is best communicated by summarizing the content of each chapter.

The book starts off with “Application Development,” containing 23 recipes that deal with the mechanics of developing Visual Basic applications, including strong (cryptographic) names. Next, “Data Manipulation” has 16 recipes for processing data, including character code translation; data parsing; date and times; and storing in arrays and other structures.

“Application Domains, Reflection, and Metadata” deals primarily with application domains (structures that insulate programs so they cannot interfere with other programs in a computer). While application domains deal with programs that run concurrently, processes and the threads in which they run are the Microsoft Windows constructs for accomplishing concurrency. “Threads, Processes, and Synchronization” illustrates the Visual Basic 2008 methods for controlling these constructs.

The recipes in “Files, Directories, and I/O” deal with the Windows file system and creation, writing, reading, and deletion of files. “Language Integrated Query (LINQ)” contains a set of features that allow Visual Basic programs to query information from any data source, including filtering, sorting, and even summarizing.

Many parts of Visual Basic use Extensible Markup Language (XML) behind the scenes. The recipes in “LINQ to XML and XML Processing” add XML to the list of data sources that LINQ can manipulate. The next chapter deals with various databases, including Microsoft Open Database Connectivity (ODBC) for a variety of databases, SQL, and Oracle.

The use of forms is a fundamental part of Visual Basic. The 2008 version of Visual Basic adds Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) to the form structures. While a chapter is devoted to this subject, the book limits its recipes to the more traditional form controls, followed by a chapter with recipes for dealing with sound, video, graphics, and printing.

Most of the recipes in “Networking and Remoting” deal with the World Wide Web, which is one example of a cross-machine application. Examples include resolving Internet names and sending email messages from a program.

Examples of recipes in “Security and Cryptography” include hashing user passwords and files and controlling access to strong-named Visual Basic applications. Recipes in “Code Interoperability” deal with passing information between managed and unmanaged applications.

“Commonly Used Interfaces and Patterns” contains recipes for integrating legacy applications with applications developed in Visual Basic 2008. Finally, “Windows Integration” includes recipes on retrieving runtime environment information; writing to the event log; and reading, writing, and searching the Windows registry.

The source code for the recipes can be downloaded from the publisher’s Web site (http://www.apress.com/book/view/1590599705).