Learn VB .NET Through Game Programming - Learn VB .NET Through Game Programming [Electronic resources] نسخه متنی

Learn VB .NET Through Game Programming

Matthew Tagliaferri

Apress

Copyright 2003 by Matthew Tagliaferri

All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the copyright owner and the publisher.

ISBN (pbk): 1-59059-114-3

Trademarked names may appear in this book. Rather than use a trademark symbol with every occurrence of a trademarked name, we use the names only in an editorial fashion and to the benefit of the trademark owner, with no intention of infringement of the trademark.

Technical Reviewer: Mike Burgess

Editorial Board: Dan Appleman, Craig Berry, Gary Cornell, Tony Davis, Steven Rycroft, Julian Skinner, Martin Streicher, Jim Sumser, Karen Watterson, Gavin Wray, John Zukowski

Assistant Publisher: Grace Wong

Project Managers: Laura Cheu and Nate McFadden

Copy Editor: Kim Wimpsett

Production Manager: Kari Brooks

Production Editor: Janet Vail

Proofreader and Indexer: Carol Burbo

Compositor: Kinetic Publishing Services, LLC

Artist: Dina Quan

Cover Designer: Kurt Krames

Manufacturing Manager: Tom Debolski

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In the United States: phone 1-800-SPRINGER, email <[orders@springer-ny.com]>, or visit [http://www.springer-ny.com]. Outside the United States: fax +49 6221 345229, email <[orders@springer.de]>, or visit [http://www.springer.de].

For information on translations, please contact Apress directly at 2560 Ninth Street, Suite 219, Berkeley, CA 94710. Phone 510-549-5930, fax 510-549-5939, email <[info@apress.com]>, or visit [http://www.apress.com].

The information in this book is distributed on an “as is” basis, without warranty. Although every precaution has been taken in the preparation of this work, neither the author(s) nor Apress shall have any liability to any person or entity with respect to any loss or damage caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly by the information contained in this work.

The source code for this book is available to readers at [http://www.apress.com] in the Downloads section.

Dedication

To my mom and dad, who got me here

About the Author

matt tagliaferri has been developing software since his high school obtained its first computers—six TRS-80 Model 3s—in 1982. matt (who prefers his name in lowercase) has developed software in several industries, including retail, insurance, corporate finance, and trucking before (somewhat miraculously) landing a senior analyst position with the Cleveland Indians baseball organization. matt has been with the Indians for six years and is now the manager of application development.

Currently, matt lives in the Cleveland area with his wife and two daughters. He enjoys collecting The Simpsons action figures and “family stuff” such as American Idol and Friday Pizza Nights.

About the Technical Reviewer

Mike Burgess started writing software on computers back when they took up whole rooms and had less memory than an average digital watch today. He has worked for small to large corporations (including Microsoft) and has been working with Visual Basic since the beta of version 1. He’s written many different types of software including small business accounting and inventory, real estate, emergency management, corporate communication, multimedia, medical diagnosis, and some hush-hush stuff for the government.

He currently resides in northern Utah with his wife and five (yes, five) children. He enjoys Family Game Night, Mountain Dew, and a good round of Ghost Recon with his kids and brothers.

Acknowledgments

Writing a Book is Definitely not a solo project—and there are numerous people to thank for the opportunity and the work put into this project. I’d like to thank the entire Apress team. This is my first Apress title, and I’ve found it to be a first-class organization. Individually, my list of acknowledgments probably reads like the internal Apress organizational chart: thanks to Gary Cornell for listening to and shaping my initial pitch, thanks to Dan Appleman for some overall direction in finding the correct audience, and thanks to Laura Cheu and Nate McFadden for serving as project managers and keeping the project on track. Mike Burgess served as technical editor for the book and did a great job not only making sure the code was complete and that everything compiled but also making suggestions to help improve code clarity and readability. Kim Wimpsett filled the role of editor, keeping my i’s dotted and my gerunds gerunding. Finally, Beth Christmas filled a multitude of roles from making sure I had the correct screen-capture software to getting me advance copies of Visual Studio. I thank all of them for turning a simple idea into the organized pile of pages you now hold in your hands.

On the home front, no project gets far without the understanding of my wife, Janet, who has to put up with me running to the computer to check email as soon as I get home from work and with the clack clack of the keyboard as she tries to read every evening. I hope she doesn’t need to read this to know how much her love and support mean to me.