The .NET platform gives Visual Basic developers access to an entirely new and comprehensive class library that promises to further simplify and speed VB application development. In VB.NET Core Classes in a Nutshell, VB Programmers will find a concise and thorough reference to the types found in the core namespaces of the .NET Framework Class Library. The heart of this book is a classic Nutshell Quick Reference to all the types found in 22 core .NET namespaces. The entry for each type describes its significance, explains how the type is used in .NET applications and lists its members and their signatures in readable VB.NET syntax. The core namespaces documented in this book include types in the following areas:

• Essential system and programming services found in the System namespace
• Text handling and regular expression pattern searches
• Diagnostics, debugging, and performance monitoring
• Generalized and specialized collection objects
• Reflection
• Extensible Markup Language (XML)
• Input/output and serialization
• Networking
• Threading and timers
• COM interop and globalization

An essential companion to VB.NET Language in a Nutshell, this book completes a two-volume reference that VB.NET programmers will turn to repeatedly in both its print and online versions. Thanks to a special partnership between O'Reilly and Microsoft, now you can integrate the content from this "In a Nutshell" title with the Dynamic Help inside Visual Studio .NET. Once you install the plug-in using the enclosed CD-ROM, you'll have full access to its 22 namespace overviews and 700-plus type entries. Requires Visual Studio .NET or Visual Basic .NET.