This book is about object-oriented programming and how it is implemented in Microsoft Visual Basic. Accordingly, the book has two separate, but interΒ twined, goals. The first is to describe the general concepts of object orientation and the second is to describe how to do object-oriented programming in Visual Basic. I intend this to be a short, no-nonsense book that can be read through once and then easily referred to at later times. (Long stories about a mythical company and its programming problems are seldom interesting the first time through, let alone the second, third or fourth times!) To read this book, you need only a minimal acquaintance with Visual Basic. In particular, I assume you can construct a simple Visual Basic program and have some rudimentary knowledge of fundamental programming techΒ niques. This book does not teach Visual Basic - it teaches you how to proΒ gram Visual Basic in an object-oriented way. The issue here is not how much Visual Basic you already know - it is that you want to learn about objectΒ oriented programming techniques. With regard to the first goal of the book, it is my feeling that a discussion of the underlying concepts of object orientation Oust what is an object, a class, encapsulation, abstraction, and so on) is essential in order to take full advanΒ tage of any object-oriented language. Simply put, it will help you understand what you are doing if you know why you are doing it.