Customer Reviews

Pro VB 2008 and the .NET 3.5 Platform (Expert's Voice)

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I, for one, miss the days of large reference manuals as opposed to help files and Google searches. For me this book is a throwback in terms of its completeness and scope. If you program in VB.net I feel this is a must-have reference. I've given it to 2 of my developer friends already and plan to give it again. Do yourself and your career a favor. God bless.

I cannot over-rate this book. I've been developing systems for 40 years, and I've never seen a better book of this type. The author, Andrew Troelsen, really knows his stuff, and knows how to teach it. I only wish I'd had his VB 2005/.NET 2.0 book two years ago when I started trying to learn .NET! There's a lot of advanced material in this book, but it's good for any experienced programmer who wants to really learn .NET and VB 2008. It explains not only the what, but the why and how. If you need a book on this material, this is absolutely the one to get, period.

I suspect that most users are interested in VB.NET in order to create GUI's to run under windows. Yet he doesn't get to that part until Chapter 27. All of his examples prior to that are building console applications. When reading this book you need to think about what you will actually be using as a developer. If you believe that you will need a tremendous amount of detail, including building windows forms by hand rather than using Visual Studio, then this is the book for you. If you don't think you will need all that detail, then this book is overkill.

Having said that, the first 8 chapters do give you an excellent introduction to using VB.NET with object oriented programming (OOP) concepts.

I would recommend this book for experienced programmers who want to understand VB.NET and how to use it with OOP. I think this will be an excellent reference book, once I get into VB.NET programming, but I think it would've been better to start with something a little less advanced.

Awesome. I'm a VB6 (I mean WAS a VB6) programmer and was thrust into a project that had to be done with dot net. I told the client "No Problem" and promptly dug into this book. Normally, I abhor lenghty technical manuals where the author pads the actual substance (the stuff you want to learn) with personal comments,anecdotes, etc. (the stuff that wastes your time). This is NOT that kind of book. Just the opposite. And the writting style is great. Conversational yet to the point with little wasted space. Happy ending: I completed the application on time and the clent likes it. Only one bug (not unhandled) was found with the Beta test. AND I understand (emphasis) what I'm coding.

This book does a fantastic job getting you up to speed on Object Oriented Programming (OOP). I'm going through this book now with a team of 3 other veteran VB6 programmers, and they are being introduced to many OOP concepts for the first time. Though the concepts are very abstract, Troelsen manages to relate them in very practical examples. He is also much more thorough than other books I was considering when it came to the details of various .Net items such as the Exception class. The main reason I like this book is because the order of the chapters progress smoothly from the core concepts of OOP and the .Net architecture to the more specific concepts like form/control design or ASP.NET pages.

As a fresh beginner I have bought several VB.NET and ASP.NET books, in addition to plenty of internet reading, during my pursuit of learning .NET. I have found that the most difficult task for .NET and OOP authors is structuring how and when to introduce all the layered and interwoven concepts. Some authors, hoping to not intimidate or confuse the reader, will settle for an outline where the interwoven nature of the topic is rigidly separated. These type of books produced more questions for me than they answer and they tend to repeat themselves a lot. The opposite side are books that are written like resources. They can speak only to more advanced readers who already have a grasp of concepts and definitions.

I am convinced this author is a natural teacher. His general outline is excellent; when necessary he speaks to more advanced concepts but always with reassurance that better explanations will come later, his tone is conversational and simple, his examples are relevant and enjoyable, and he does a great job keeping the 1300 page book from feeling like a resource. Thanks for giving me the confidence to keep going!

I am 4 chapters into the book. So far every chapter is well written, has good examples and informative.

For a VB.NET Book, this is fantastic read...here's why: The book reads like your are listening to one of your favorite and respected intstructors. Easy to read. The author does a great job presenting examples and bringing harmony in teaching the principles of Object Oriented Programming. I program VB.NET on a by-project basis and can be many months between coding -- so this book has been a great way to build up my disciplined programming skills.

A wealth of detailed info, presented in an eminently readable narrative form -- what's not to like?

This is the best book on computer programming I have ever read. It digs way deep into the guts of what is happening behind the scenes and is not just a bunch of code. It is well organized and if you patiently work through all of the examples you will not be lost. I would say this book covers about four times what most other books on this subject can cover with the same amount of paper and still is deeper and more thorough.