I recently found out about strong typing in VB.Net (naturally it was on here, thanks!) and am deciding I should take another step toward being a better programmer. I went from vba macros -> VB.Net, because I needed a program that I could automate and I never read anything about strong typing, so I kind of fell into the VB.Net default trap. Now I am looking to turn it on and sort out this whole type thing.

I was hoping someone could direct me towards some resources to make this transistion as painless as possible. I have read around some and ctype seems to come up a lot, but past that I am at a bit of a loss. What are the benefits of switching? Is there more to it than just using ctype to cast things? I feel like there is a good article that I have failed to come across and any direction would be great.

Would a good approach to be to rewrite a program that is written with option strict off and note differences?