8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Good book, August 5, 2002
This review is from: Applied Microsoft .NET Framework Programming in Microsoft Visual Basic .NET (Paperback)
Good book if you do not have Richter's first book with C# explanations.. If you do, no use buying this book for it seems there is absolutely no difference in contents between the two..!
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16 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent book for using VB .NET with the .NET Framework, July 20, 2002
This review is from: Applied Microsoft .NET Framework Programming in Microsoft Visual Basic .NET (Paperback)
I love Jeffrey Richter's books. Having read the book Applied .NET Framework Programming, I was a bit unsure about picking up this book. Overall, I am glad I did, as there are little nuances to Visual Basic .NET that are not present in C#.
I will add a caveat, however. Most people will be satisfied with one book or the other, and not both. The material is almost identical, with only a minor shift in languages. While there is some material that works in C# and not in Visual Basic .NET, and visa versa, a great majority of the material is identical. This may be the reason why a former reviewer panned the book, but I feel that the material should be reviewed on its value, and not how close it is to another book.
Like Applied .NET Framework Programming, this book is divided into 5 parts:
The first part deals with the CLR and .NET Framework, and, most importantly, how to set up your applications to take advantage of the .NET Framework.
Part two deals with types. It works with both value types (like structures and enumerations) and reference types (like classes and arrays). One of the most valuable chapters in this section centers around checking object equality (including overriding Equals) and identity (using Hash codes). Excellent material.
Part three deals with designing your own types. The material in this section is a gem for properly designing types, in general, and designing good types for the .NET Framework, in specific. As classes are the core of OOP, most of the types created here are classes (reference types).
Part four deals with the essential types in the .NET Framework and how to use them to your advantage.
Part five is the real gem of the book, as it deals with how to manage types in your applications. If you do not currently use finally blocks in your exception handler, this book will convince you why you should. Of great use is the info on the IDisposable interface. This book also shows the C# using block, even though there is no equivalent in VB.NET. I certainly hope Microsoft picks this gem up in a future version.
I have personally heard Jeffrey speak on the Microsoft campus, and I am quite impressed with the depth and bredth of his knowledge. I have not heard Balena speak, but after this book, and his Visual Basic .NET book, I welcome the opportunity. With books like this, MSPress is taking the crown away from Wrox Press (the former best programming books on the market) ... in a big way.
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Best Book Ever,Must Read for VB.NET, September 25, 2002
This review is from: Applied Microsoft .NET Framework Programming in Microsoft Visual Basic .NET (Paperback)
This excellent Book explains everything you need to know about the framework and the CLR, especially for VB.NET. Richter covers a lot of the new features built in the language that will save you development time. He doesn't tackle most of the specialized classes in the .NET Framework like other books .but he does go in depth into the ones that will be used by most programmers .Many lights will go off in your mind as reading this book. Highly recommend this book to all VB.NET programmer.
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