Introduction to Programming with Visual Basic.NET, An (5th Edition) (Paperback)

by David I. Schneider (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
An excellent introduction to programming using Visual Basic.NET. The examples start with basics and gradually develop to solve real-life problems. Features a wealth of learning aids, including exercises, practice problems, case studies, summaries and detailed appendices. Softcover.

From the Back Cover

"This book is an excellent introduction to programming using Visual Basic.NET. The examples start with basics and gradually develop to solve real-life problems." - Amit Kalani, CIStems Solutions LLC.

"Schneider's proven approach works as effectively with VB.NET as it does with Visual Basic 6.0; the use of a variety of short examples makes the concepts being presented clear and understandable. The end-of-chapter programming projects build on this base and lead to a thorough understanding of the context for these concepts." - Chris Panell, Heald College

Since its introduction in 1991, Visual Basic has become the tool of choice for developing user-friendly applications in today's business world. Easy to use and fun to learn, Visual Basic is the state of the art in Basic programming that allows you to take full control of Microsoft's best-selling Windows applications.

The latest incarnation of Visual Basic, called Visual Basic .NET, brings the language into the Internet age by incorporating the .NET framework. Students and developers alike are eagerly embracing the dynamic new features of the language and find Visual Basic.NET to be the ideal tool to understand the development of computer programs.

Written by best-selling author David I. Schneider, An Introduction to Visual Basic .NET assumes no prior programming experience and includes these important pedagogical features:

• Thoroughly explains the fundamentals of accurate, modern programming methodology using the elements of Windows' graphical user interface.
• Includes an entire chapter on database programming using ADO.NET and SQL.
• Presents object-oriented techniques throughout the book and culminates in a complete chapter devoted to OOP, including inheritance and polymorphism.
• Supplies many examples, projects, and exercises that students and professionals can appreciate.

The text also features a wealth of learning aids, including exercises, practice problems, programming projects, case studies, comments, summaries and detailed appendices.

Valuable supplements include:

• An Instructors' Resource CD containing solutions to all the exercises and programming projects, as well as a test item file.
  
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Product Details

• Paperback: 709 pages
• Publisher: Prentice Hall; 5 edition (April 25, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0130306576
• ISBN-13: 978-0130306579
• Product Dimensions: 10 x 8 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #630,922 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Tremendous coverage but may not cover all you want, November 20, 2002

By	John Harpur (Trim, Meath, IRELAND) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This is a reworking of Schneider's earlier VB book(s). It is important at the outset to grasp that this book, like his others, is written from a traditional data processing perspective (ubiquitous bank/loan account examples). Strong emphasis on structured programming is demonstrated throughout. So it's quite traditional in how it approaches topics. It has a marvellous collection of exercises both short and project based. If you can work through these, you will have a very good knowledge of traditional core programming skills. And this is the key point of the text: it is primarily about teaching you how to program using VB.net as the instruction medium and not anything else.

This is no quick tips and tools book, though it obviously contains such. Secondly, it is not a how to do GUIs book. You won't find much here on building multimedia applications or graphical games. Instead, the book offers a shoehorning of masses of programming techniques into the VB.net environment. And the work is very high quality both in terms of the examples and their pedagogical value.

In terms of layout, the book is particularly good. For a start it more or less lies flat when you open it. Colour coding of programs is used, and each chaper and topic is illustrated with clearly flagged example code and displays. There is no shortage of well developed code, (though some of the examples may seem a little conservative).

The first two thirds of the book introduces a bit of history and traditional programming thinking: procedures, decision logic, loops, arrays and files. The remainder deals with controls, OO in VB.net and database access. The OO chapter uses a reasonable number of examples to convey techniques and the exercises are interesting, but it is introductory (don't expect a crash course in abstract datatypes). However the chapter has but one graphics based example which is a bit mean.

While the book has exemplary strengths over and above the majority in the field, there are a few weaknesses which indicate the need for at least one supplementary text.

In the first place, the book has nothing to say on GDI+ programming, and many will judge this oversight as a serious flaw. Secondly, the multiple document interface capacity of VB.net (changed somewhat from VB6) is not developed. Indeed with the exception of three pages on adding multiple forms (482-485), the rationale for multiwindowed displays is completely overlooked. In fairness, the book is not focused around user interface design issues (either a strength or a weakness depending on your needs).

The chapter on databases access is good but just above elementary. However, don't expect a run down on web servers and XML. These topics are not covered. Even a brief chapter on XML would not be out of place.

From a slightly more pedantic position, I am surprised that there is no general chapter on data structures. Arrays are given a very handsome chapter, and sorting a searching are developed well, but we don't explore explicitly stacks and queues. Now one of the strengths of VB.net is that stack and queue creation and manipulation are made trivial due to inbuilt functions. It would have been useful to see these in action. Moreover, trees and graphs are not covered, and that is a bit of a puzzle.

Overall the book is a superb programming text. Dated perhaps in some of its focus, but still a better introduction to programming than many notionally equivalent texts, which are perhaps more glamorous, but almost certainly less thoughtful.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Not my first choice...., January 21, 2003

By A Customer

This book is not a good one for "Introduction" to Programming using VB. My opinion obviously, but I find the book to draw way too many assumptions about what the reader already knows about VB. Reading this text I find myself re-reading over and over again the concepts that I am supposed to learn. The author throws out several concepts, definitions and terms all within one sentence. It is difficult to digest. Have a pen ready with lots of ink- you will have to make your own notes to make sense of it. I have only read 130 pages and was forced to buy another text to fill in the gaps. Too bad- the other text is quite good (Murach's Beginning VB) but this is not the book used for my class. There are a billion examples- for me the approach that works best is type out every example and just study it with the help the other text, websites and online help. Perhaps is this is the best way to get it done- but I personally feel learning this way is too labor intensive.

6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Lot of practice problems, November 11, 2003

By	Jaewoo Kim (Santa Monica, CA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

The best way to learn a computer language is the same as the best way of learning a human language, you need to practice. That's why practice problems are essential to any beginner's book to any programming language. This book has BY FAR the most practice problems for the VB.net learners. It also has detailed and useful explaination of basic VB.net concepts. What you learn in this book will provide a solid framwork for more complicated VB.net subjects.