Customer Reviews

Microsoft® Visual Basic® .NET Step by Step--Version 2003 (Step by Step (Microsoft))

5 star:		(25)
4 star:		(16)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(9)

 

 

If your looking for book that will start to make sense of the new .net technology, this book is the one to start with.

It's a beginners level book that teaches both vb.net basics and the Visual Studio environment you'll be using to make your applications. Existing VB6 programmers will find this an easy read (100+ pages in a couple hours).

Lessons are short, clear and goal orientated. There are numerous sceenshots to help guide the way and great charts in the places where you'll need them. Notes and tips are placed throughout the book and add real value to it. Differences between VB6 and VB.net are pointed out.

I'd purchase other books in this series based on my experience with this book. It gives you the solid understanding of the basics you'll need when you go into more advanced programmming levels.

As an experienced VB developer seeking to learn VB.NET this was the first book I read. After reading this book I came to the conclusion that VB.NET was not much of a change from VB 6!! Well having since gained greater knowledge I now know that that conclusion was just plain wrong. This book gives people the wrong impression of what VB.NET really is. Most of the examples in this book just review the basics of VB in general and worse, far far worse, this book often uses the old VB 6 coding techniques instead of the new .NET ones where newer techniques exist. But the old techniques are merely allowed in .NET for backward compatibility!

Is this a good book for beginners? No, it is too much of an odd hybrid between VB 6 and true VB.NET programming. It does not describe any actual existing language as it *should* be programmed. I will concede that many of the basics it teaches are still valid. However ,they are mixed in with techniques that are obsolete to .NET and a beginner is going to have a hard time sorting this out.

I still give it a few stars because it contains some useful information. It's not completly worthless. However there are better books out there on which to spend your time and money. There are many books are there which have a far higher information to page ratio.

This book is an excellent starting point for anyone who has never programmed with VB or is returning to it after a long absence (like me). It does not delve into object orient programming or drill down on ADO.Net. I does provide a lot of simple exercises that can be built on. After completing this book I highly recommend Coding Techniques for Microsoft Visual Basic .Net by John Connell.

After reading Microsoft Visual C# .NET Step By Step, I was a bit excited at where Microsoft was moving with the Step By Step series. This particular book, however, sets me back a bit on my praise.
First, I should start off by saying this is not a horrible book. If you truly are starting out with Visual Basic .NET, esp. if you have never learned an earlier version of Visual Basic, you can get a lot out of this book. The exercises are excellent, esp. if you are working with desktop apps, and will help you nail down the examples.
Now, my real problem with this book is it treats Visual Basic .NET as a toy language. VB has long had this reputation since the IDE did all of the work for you. As all languages are now run in the same IDE, with the same tools, this argument should be moot. Why, then, did the author of this book choose such simplistic drivel when compared to the Visual C# .NET book? Unfortunately, I cannot answer that question.
I rate this book as average despite the fact I am a bit disappointed. The reason for the rating is the book does its job. It is a book for beginners (or at least beginners to the language) who want an easy method to learn the new language. If you are an experienced Visual Basic programmer, the Code Techniques for Visual Basic .NET is a much better deal, but I can see that a newer developer can find a lot of value in this book.
One warning. While the book does have some information on web applications and services, the primary focus is on building desktop apps. This is not a bad thing if you can separate the language from the implementation, as the concepts in the book are sound. If, however, you are looking for a book that moves farther into web development, you might be disappointed.

I am an experienced MS DOS visual basic programmer. I bought VB.Net and was really out to sea. The Interface was fine but I had no idea how to structure the code. This book got me up and running in minutes. It saved me countless hours searching the on-line help that comes with VB.Net. It will get you printing (far from an easy task), accessing files and building modules quickly. The only negative I have is that the book covers some super basic concepts, and jumps into some really complex subjects by the end, so I would say it lacks focus: not really for beginners and not really for experts. On the other hand...there is something for everyone. You WILL need one other book: the language reference by the same publisher.
I am GLAD I bought this book.

As a professional VB & Web developer, I found this book disappointing. It is aimed squarely at someone new to any kind of programming, and so covers elementary concepts at the expense of advanced issues.

If you are a complete novice to programming, but somehow own a copy of Visual Studio .NET (perhaps unlikely!!), then this may be the book for you. The book covers all the basic programming concepts such as 'if' clauses, loops, and variables in an easy, friendly way.

It is easily readable, with simple, well-explained examples and good use of screenshots. There are no exercises for the reader, to reinforce learning, unfortunately.

It does gives a good, simple, easy-to-follow introduction to Visual Studio .NET, and gives a good explanation of the basic VB.NET tools for creating Windows applications. It does not, though, cover Visual Studio .NET in real depth. The book leaves much of the IDE uncharted. In many places, the author suggests we use the online help for more information.

Worst of all, the book is very weak on web development. For example, it does not even explain how to create a .NET Web Service - which is one of the main benefits of .NET. In fact, the section on Internet Programming hardly gets started at all - covering how to use Internet Explorer as a programming object, how to use hyperlinks and simple form controls, how to get started with IIS, but little else.

Overall, you may well decide half-way through that you need to order something meatier, for when you have finished this 'aperitif'.

Finally I found a book where they not only lead you through the code but actually explain what the code is doing. Definitely a beginner book, but thats exactly what I needed since I have no VB background. This book gives you the option to type in all the code yourself, or the finished programs are all included on the CD. Thanks for making it possible for me to understand the subject.

I am somewhat of a beginner so I couldn't tell you if this book is suitable for the ultra-experienced VB programmer. I CAN say that in the way that this book is structured, any experienced VB programmer will get valuable information out of this book. One example of this is that in the beginning of every chapter, regardless of the subject, The author gives details on how this particular topic is different in VB.NET versus VB6. This will give the experienced programmer valuable information as to what has changed so that he doesn't chase his tail looking for a reason why his code will not work (for example, ALL variables in VB.NET must be dimensioned, unless you specify by writing a statement telling VS that you are not going to Dim).

For the beginner, (that would be me) I found this book to be very valuable. The book flowed properly in the way of topics and exercises (and there were PLENTY of exercises). ALL OF THE CODE EXAMPLES WORKED!! I for one was amazed! Along with that, I didn't see any glaring grammatical errors nor did I find any technical errors either, (You won't find errata for this book yet). It is refreshing to finally read a technology related book that was properly proof-read.

VB.NET Step by Step by no means moves slowly. The chapters are very much to the point with little to no "fluff". Hence, all chapters are short, sweet, and to the point with a great topic review at the end of each chapter. This is great for the "non book reader" who gets bored easily, (eg. those who fall asleep when trying to read Wrox books). Because of the short chapters, many topics are covered and a lot of ground is gained in a short period of time.

In conclusion, I walked away from this book with much more knowledge than I had previously with both VB.NET and Visual Studio 7. I would highly recommend this book to beginner and intermediate programmers. VB.NET Step By Step will get in depth, but not so in dept that the beginner to average programmer will become lost.

Some have criticized Halvorson's book as being too basic, or not basic enough. The truth is that this book is really for either a) the new person who knows some programming and wants to get his or her feet wet in VB.Net, or b) someone who knows VB6 and wants to skim and see changes. It hits the highlights to get you off the ground. The value in it comes more from the programs provided that you can dissect than the instructions that come with the steps. The author takes the time to point out how .Net differs from version 6, including the changes, and removals between the versions. If you are a VB programmer already, this book is below you, except as I mentioned for skimming for changes quickly. But if you are looking to get a simple handle on the changes, or the new .net development platform at all, this gets your foot in the door. It gave me enough to start with and now I can springboard off of that into more detailed books. I'm not going to be writing huge applications right now, but I'm a step along the way. The book delivers on what it sets out to do.

I am a programming virgin and wanted to learn VISUAL BASIC.NET. I first purchased VB.NET programming for the absolute beginner and the SAMs Teach yourself VB.NET in 24h. These two books were good (SAMs Teach yourself VB.NET in 24h was better) but both emphasized typing in code rather than understanding the code. The explanations seemed lacking in comparison with the Microsoft VB.NET Step by Step book. The Step by Step book actually explained the code in better detail. I also found this book easy to follow and understand. This book was great.