What are the .NET Framework and Visual Basic .NET features that every VB developer should know?  I suggest the following as a starting list (in no particular order):

1. Object-oriented features:  classes, objects, constructors, inheritance, interfaces, polymorphism, methods, overloading
2. Shared (static) Classes and Methods
3. Converting data types and casting objects
4. Manipulating strings and using StringBuilder
5. Basic File I/O (open, read, write)
6. ADO.NET:  DataSet, *DataAdapter, *Command, and *DataReader classes
7. Basic XML processing (opening a file/stream and finding an element)
8. Exception handling / Try-Catch blocks
9. Difference between late binding and early binding (and the existence of Option Strict On)
10. Assemblies, referencing DLLs, and importing namespaces
11. Basic collections (lists, dictionaries, arrays)
12. Security fundamentals (CAS, authentication vs. authorization, validating input)
13. Basics of threading
14. Basics of garbage collection
15. Spitting out data and getting data back (varies with type of application of course)

Comment away!  Please don't just say C# (or Ruby)...  I'm not looking for yet another VB vs. C# debate.

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