1.11. Summary

This chapter looked at many of the basic building blocks of Visual Basic that are used throughout project development. Understanding not only the basic components, but also how they work will help you to write more stable and better performing software. Note the following highlights of this chapter:

• Beware of array sizes; all arrays start at 0 and are defined not by size, but by the highest index.

• Remember to use the StringBuilder class for string manipulation.

• Pay attention to variable scope, and rely on it for cleaning up variables you no longer need.

• Use Option Strict; it's not about style, it's about reliability and performance.

• Try to avoid legacy methods for conversions.

• Attempt to leverage the TryParse and TryCast methods.

• Understand variable scope and when variables will go out of scope.