I assume that you, the reader, are an experienced developer and that you feel comfortable with object-oriented concepts such as encapsulation and inheritance. I also assume that you have basic familiarity with either C# or Visual Basic, both in versions 1.1 and 2.0 of the languages. Although the book uses C# for the most part, it’s just as pertinent to Visual Basic 2005 developers. In cases in which the translation from C# to Visual Basic 2005 isn’t straightforward or when the two languages differ significantly, I’ve provided either matching Visual Basic 2005 sample code or an explicit note.

If you’re experienced with COM, this book will port your COM understanding to .NET. If you’ve never used COM before, you’ll find the coverage of the principles of component-oriented programming especially useful.