Customer Reviews

Applied Microsoft .NET Framework Programming in Microsoft Visual Basic .NET

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

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..!

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.

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.

The title is misleading, but the material is wonderful. (This book was originally published in C#, and the 2.0 edition of this book is titled CLR via C#.) If you already have a working knowledge of VB.Net 1.0/1.1 and want to gain a deeper understanding of the CLR internals and some essential patterns, this is the best place to start. Unless you are a seasoned developer, this should not be your first book on .Net.

This book contains a wealth of information that is not available through MSDN and often difficult to find anywhere else. This version, VB.Net, contains a few items that aren't in the C# version, e.g., the difference between DirectCast and CType, but it's definitely not worth purchasing if you already have the C# edition.

I especially enjoyed Richter's coverage of the following:
Primitive Types (especially the bit about constants being compiled into IL)
Events & Delegates (their relationship may surprise some VB developers)
Exception Patterns & Strategies
Garbage Collection & IDisposable

I don't understand the reviewer who thinks this book is plagiarized by Jeff's other books. It's obvious that the whole point of this book is that it contains the same content as Jeff's "Applied MS .NET Fx Programming" book since the 2 books have the same title!

I for one appreciate that Jeff worked with Francesco to gear a version of Jeff's book for the VB.NET programmer. You wouldn't give a bad review to a book if it were translated from English to Italian, would you?! That's what was done here.

Also, I think Jeff's book is awesome and full of really useful information. I love that a version exists specifically for me, a VB programmer! If you're a VB programmer, you should definitely buy this book.

Mr. Richter has an incredible mastery of the elements of the .NET Framework. As others have observed, Microsoft development teams could indeed benefit from reading the book. (In fact, there are several instances in which Mr. Richter critiques the implementation that Microsoft has provided and offers his recommendation on how it could be improved.) Unfortunately, you would have to be a member of a Microsoft development team to have enough grounding in the concepts presented here to benefit from Mr. Richter's expertise. What it comes down to is there's a difference between presenting material and providing the tools that enable a learning experience to occur.

This book is the real Bible in .NET Framework.

¡¾1¡¿ Jeff stands on both a depth and a high level about .NET Framework. We can draw this from the parts of this book. Jeff partitions the .NET Framework into four parts: "Basics of the Microsoft .NET Framework","Working with Types and the Common Language Runtime", "Designing Types", "Essential Types", "Managing Types". This vision is unique, and of course gives me very good understanding to .NET Framework . And I have never seen a DonNet writer have this vision.

¡¾2¡¿ It is not a reorganization of MSDN doc( To tell the truth,many "excellent books' do in this way). Instead, it is an important complement to the MSDN doc, especially in the Chapter 2 ,Chapter 3,Chapter 5, Chapter 6, Chapter 15, Chapter 18, and Chapter 19.

The Chapter 6 , Chapter 18 and Chapter 19 are so excellent that I don't think there is another will exceed this. Oh, Don Box seems to be making efforts :)

They give me many important things that I don't find in some other books and MSDN. I think even Microsoft staffs need to get this book¡ª¡ªJeff recommanded many good techniques for .NET Framework Architecture,and found some bugs in .NET Framework.

¡¾3¡¿ Jeff has abundant programming experiences in programming , especially in Microsoft platform. And he give many good guidelines ,and even some patterns in this book. Especially for the Equality of value types and reference types(box/unbox), the Exception Handling, and the Garbage Collection.

¡¾4¡¿The VB veteran Francesco Balena gives many good VB.NET features target .NET Framework.

¡¾5¡¿There are so many good points that I can not write them all in one review.

¡¾6¡¿ By the way, this book is not for the .NET application( Windows Forms,ASP.NET,Web Services), but this a must-base for them

To summarize , this is a unique£¬classic£¬and excellent book for .NET Framwork. A real Bible in .NET Framework.

This is a good book if you are serious on becoming an .NET expert. This book shows the right direction and clarifies the .NET Framework. If you are experienced with VB.NET, then this book is more useful. I am an experienced VB.NET/COM professional . This book helped me to master the overall .NET Framework. I recommend this book to all VB.NET programmers.

This is a great contribution to understanding the .Net framework. I would have liked for Jeff to have included a "Best Practices" or "List of Recommendations" based on his many findings. There's so much content to remember, that it will be hard to use it as a reference if his recommendation isn't in the section/chapter you think.
The Summary Info could be a download or an appendix. Just a thought.

I am a technical person. I have developed using VB for nearly ten years now. This is the first .Net book I picked up. It was a mistake. I found that many of the topics covered in this book were easier to learn using other sources.