Free mag vol1 | Page 582

CHAPTER 14  BUILDING AND CONFIGURING CLASS LIBRARIES Building a Visual Basic Client Application Recall that the .NET platform allows developers to share compiled code across programming languages. To illustrate the language-agnostic attitude of the .NET platform, let’s create another Console Application (VisualBasicCarClient), this time using Visual Basic (see Figure 14-9). Once you have created the project, set a reference to CarLibrary.dll using the Add Reference dialog box, which can be activated by the Project  Add Reference menu option. Figure 14-9. Creating a Visual Basic Console Application Like C#, Visual Basic allows you to list each namespace used within the current file. However, Visual Basic offers the Imports keyword rather than the C# using keyword, so add the following Imports statement within the Module1.vb code file: Imports CarLibrary Module Module1 Sub Main() End Sub End Module Notice that the Main() method is defined within a Visual Basic module type. In a nutshell, modules are a Visual Basic notation for defining a class that can contain only static methods (much like a C# static class). In any case, to exercise the MiniVan and SportsCar types using the syntax of Visual Basic, update your Main() method as follows: Sub Main() Console.WriteLine("***** VB CarLibrary Client App *****") 524