[AdamSpeight2008]

Lets suppose for a moment that you want to recreate the follow xml.

<Example>
 <Items>
  <Item Id='0'>A</Item>
  <Item Id='1'>B</Item>
  <Item Id='2'>C</Item>
  <Item Id='3'>D</Item>
  <Item Id='4'>E</Item>
  <Item Id='5'>F</Item>
  <Item Id='6'>G</Item>
 </Items>
 <Items>
  <Item Id='10'>A1</Item>
  <Item Id='11'>B1</Item>
  <Item Id='12'>C1</Item>
  <Item Id='13'>D1</Item>
  <Item Id='14'>E1</Item>
  <Item Id='15'>F1</Item>
  <Item Id='16'>G1</Item>
 </Items>
</Example>

What about to show to you is one of vb.net greatest tricks;- XML Literals
Using XML Literals we could just do

dim x= <Items>
  <Item Id='0'>A</Item>
  <Item Id='1'>B</Item>
  <Item Id='2'>C</Item>
  <Item Id='3'>D</Item>
  <Item Id='4'>E</Item>
  <Item Id='5'>F</Item>
  <Item Id='6'>G</Item>
 </Items>
 <Items>
  <Item Id='10'>A1</Item>
  <Item Id='11'>B1</Item>
  <Item Id='12'>C1</Item>
  <Item Id='13'>D1</Item>
  <Item Id='14'>E1</Item>
  <Item Id='15'>F1</Item>
  <Item Id='16'>G1</Item>
 </Items>
</Example>

or we could use more power of the XML Literals;-
<%= %>
Which tells the compiler you are put a value (xmlnode) in here.
Edit: It allow you breaks out of the XML to include stuff derived through code.

  Dim letters() = {"A", "B", "C", "D", "E", "F", "G"}
  Dim x1 = From i As Integer In Enumerable.Range(0, 7) _
        Select <Item Id=<%= i %>><%= letters(i) %></Item>
  Dim x2 = From i As Integer In Enumerable.Range(0, 7) _
        Select <Item Id=<%= i + 10 %>><%= letters(i) & "1" %></Item>
  Dim xb = <Example><Items><%= x1 %></Items><Items><%= x2 %></Items></Example>

or

Dim xb2 = <Example>
             <Items>
              <%= From i In Enumerable.Range(0, 7) Select <Item Id=<%= i %>><%= letters(i) %></Item> %>
             </Items>
             <Items>
              <%= From i In Enumerable.Range(0, 7) Select <Item Id=<%= i + 10 %>><%= letters(i) & "1" %></Item> %>
             </Items>
            </Example>
 

Now variable xb and xb2 have the same xml as x

I know it looks complex but it is an awful lot better then use XDocument & XElements.

Node Selection

Let get the Items Node

Dim ItemsNodes = xb.<Items>

You'll see that it also contains the Item nodes.
Notice the .< those means return all the child elements of this node, which have the same qualified name as contained in the angle brackets

Lets get all the Item nodes

Dim ItemNodes=xb...<Item>

Notice the ...< this means return all of the descendants elements which have the same qualified as contained in the angle bracket.

Node Attribute

Lets output the Id of ItemNodes(8)

Console.WriteLine("ItemNodes({0}) = {1}",8, ItemNodes(8).@Id)

Notice the .@ which means an attribute.

We could change the Id value to 33 similarly
ItemNods(8).@Id=33


Conclusion

XML Literals + LINQ = Easy to manipulate XML.