Top 10 Reasons to Adopt Visual Basic .NET 2003

While there are countless reasons to adopt Visual Basic .NET 2003, we have searched and presented these 10 reasons top the list for the fellows.

NEW—Enhanced Visual Studio .NET IDE
Visual Basic .NET 2003 provides developers with the award-winning Visual Studio .NET integrated development environment (IDE), which now includes faster startup time, enhanced Smart Listing for faster and more accurate coding, flexible Task Lists, property editors, IntelliSense® improvements, forms designers, and much more.

NEW—Improved Debugging with IntelliSense
IntelliSense is now available within the Immediate Window for providing assistance while debugging applications. In addition, the Visual Basic .NET IDE now offers a simplified Debug Window to provide only the most pertinent information for quickly debugging Visual Basic .NET applications.

Build Applications for Windows
The Microsoft Windows® Forms Designer included in Visual Basic .NET 2003 is an enhanced version of the forms designer that Visual Basic developers have been using for years. Features include control anchoring and docking to eliminate the need for complex resize code, an in-place menu editor to deliver WYSIWYG menu creation, the tab order editor to provide rapid application development (RAD) organization of controls, and visual inheritance.

Build Applications for the Web
Visual Basic .NET 2003 delivers "Visual Basic for the Web." Using Web Forms, you can easily build true thin-client Web-based applications that intelligently render on any browser and on any platform. Programming with Web Forms combines the RAD experience of Visual Basic 6.0 forms with the easy deployment and maintenance of Web-based applications. The enhanced HTML editor delivers IntelliSense statement completion for HTML tags, and the separation of user interface (UI) from code enables more efficient team-based development.

NEW—Build Applications for Mobile Web and Smart Devices
Using the integrated ASP.NET Mobile Web Forms Designer, you can easily build thin-client Web-based applications that intelligently render on more than 200 devices including wireless application protocol (WAP) mobile phones, wireless personal digital assistants (PDAs), and pagers.

Visual Studio .NET 2003 now includes integrated support for the Microsoft .NET Compact Framework. Using the Windows Forms designer, Visual Basic developers can easily build, debug, and deploy applications for the Pocket PC, Pocket PC Phone Edition, and other smart devices powered by the .NET Compact Framework. Integrated emulation enables developers to program and debug their applications easily without requiring a device. These features are available in Visual Studio .NET 2003 Professional, Visual Studio .NET 2003 Enterprise, and Visual Studio .NET 2003 Enterprise Architect editions.

Trouble-free Deployment of Windows-based Applications
Visual Basic .NET and the .NET Framework simplify Windows-based application deployment and help to make "DLL Hell" and component versioning issues a thing of the past. XCOPY deployment enables developers to install a Windows-based application simply by copying files to a directory. With Visual Basic .NET and auto-download deployment, Windows-based applications can be installed and executed simply by pointing a Web browser to a URL.

NEW—Target the Improved Microsoft .NET Framework 1.1
The .NET Framework version 1.1 provides numerous enhancements over the .NET Framework 1.0, including better scalability and performance and managed providers for Oracle and ODBC database connectivity. To ensure the highest level of compatibility, the .NET Framework 1.1 can be installed side-by-side with the .NET Framework 1.0.

NEW—Enhanced Upgrade Technology
Visual Basic .NET 2003 developers can now leverage even more of their existing investments in code and skills. The improved upgrade wizard enables developers to migrate up to 95 percent of existing code to Visual Basic .NET. The upgrade wizard is now available in Visual Basic .NET 2003 Standard edition and Visual Studio .NET 2003 Professional, Visual Studio .NET 2003 Enterprise, and Visual Studio .NET 2003 Enterprise Architect editions.

Powerful, Flexible Data Access
Visual Basic .NET provides developers with both the ActiveX® Data Objects (ADO) data access programming model for backward-compatibility, plus XML-based ADO.NET. With ADO.NET, developers gain access to more powerful components, such as the DataSet control and a strongly typed programming model that provides IntelliSense statement completion for data access code.

Native Support for XML Web Services
Visual Basic .NET enables developers to easily deploy and consume XML Web services from within any application. Web services reduce development time by enabling software integration with applications on any platform