Problems in declaring a variable as Byte in VB.NET

Some flavors

    Dim b() As Byte 'b is nothing
    Dim b1(1023) As Byte 'b1 is an array of 1024 elements, all equal to 0
    Dim b2() As Byte = New Byte() {85, 99, 1, 255} 'four elements

    b = New Byte() {} 'zero element array
    b = New Byte() {1, 2} 'two element array

Inference is generally a bad idea.

You need curly braces, because if you don't put them, it means you're trying to call a constructor for a single object -- which is an error for different reasons:

1. You can't assign a single object to an array. (This is always true.)
2. Byte doesn't have a constructor. (This is only true in this particular case.)