Blank Lines

Those look like some 'style' guidelines for writing VB.NET code - they're certainly not compulsory.

The first one means that you first declare the local variables used in a method and then leave a blank line before the executable code.

The second one means that you should always leave a blank line after closing a code block (If, For, While etc statements) unless it's followed by the closure of another code block in which it's nested.

For example:

Public Sub MyMethod()
   Dim i As Integer = 1
   Dim j As Integer = 2
   Dim k As Integer
   Dim l As Integer
   Dim m As Integer
   Dim n As Integer = 0

   k = i  + j  ' leave blank line after variable declarations
   For l  = 0 To i
      For m = j To k
          n += l * m
      Next m ' no blank line as followed by another Next statement
   Next n  ' leave blank line as Next not followed by another closure 
 
   Console.WriteLine(n) 
End Sub