14 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Great Detail., April 7, 2003
This review is from: MCAD/MCSD Visual Basic .NET Certification All-in-One Exam Guide (Hardcover)
Anyone will tell you that one book alone can not prepare you for Microsoft Certification. And I have to agree 100%. With that said I found this book detailed(technically) in a way that other books that aim at being the only certification book you need. I started reading the books on the subject and while the language was warm and fuzzy and easily kept your attention, I really didn't get much in the way of technical detail. The examples in the All in One book helped me nail down the more complex topics like delegates and remoting that other books only lightly touched. The one negative to this book is you need some experience in order to understand it. If you lack experience then my advice would be to buy both the MSPress Study Guides and this All in One. Use the MS book to get a feel for the concepts and use the All in One to start coding examples.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Disappointment for beginners, May 5, 2005
This review is from: MCAD/MCSD Visual Basic .NET Certification All-in-One Exam Guide (Hardcover)
First of all when I bought this book I was drowning in .Net books and E-Books, I was confused in where to start from, so when I found this book I told my self this is the end of the suffering..... but it seems to be is the beginning.
The book tries to cover the whole subjects required by Microsoft to pass and excel MCAD/MCSD so the book passes throw each of them but just like super sonic ...., it just like a cram no more no less, it try to cut that fat off but it cute much of the meet as well, so there is many subject that poorly covered and many other subject is covered in a way that left you in a state that you don't know what is this thing for, for example when covering ADO.Net it just pass throw it to tell you how to make connection and adapter, but it will not tell you how to add data, or even delete it, and it have not even show how to publish it in a datagrid, same thing happen in COM and assembly chapters.
Another thing it's not a wise choose for absolutely beginners, it have no concentrate on fundamentals of programming, so if you are fresh keep your hands off this book.
More over there is many typing errors, and even errors in tables and examples, so for fresh programmers that will turn the learning process into hell it self.
This book is only good to be quick reference for MCAD/MCSD, you can pass the test only with this book but take it word from me you will not excel it with it.
So what to do? If you are beginner get some easy to learn book like Deitel series, then get the huge MS-VB.Net, but you will need this book just to know what is exactly in the exam.
Finally, THERE IS BIG CHANCE THAT YOU CAN PASS THE EXAM WITH THIS BOOK, SO TAKE IT IF YOU ARE THAT KIND OF GUYS WHO JUST WANT TO GET THE CERTIFICATION.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Good Idea ... bad execution, September 4, 2004
This review is from: MCAD/MCSD Visual Basic .NET Certification All-in-One Exam Guide (Hardcover)
This book was a great idea in concept but it lacks in in execution. It suffers from poor editing. The examples often lack some critical piece that would make it very difficult for a beginner to complete the excercises and have working examples.
Either the technical editor was sloppy or the proof reader/editor was a non technical person and so could not properly evaluate the logic of what was being written.
There is a published errors page on the publishers web site however the sheet only covers the first few chapters.
Its very frustrating when you are trying to learn something and the samples don't work and since you are learning you dont' know why?
I would NOT depend on this book as the only study guide for the exams.
There is a cd ,which comes with test questions, which is helpful however I'm not sure having taken one of the exams in question that the test questions prepare you for the level of difficulty of the actual exams.
Good Luck!!!
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