Customer Reviews

Moving to VB .NET: Strategies, Concepts, and Code, Second Edition

5 star:		(36)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

Dan Appleman is one who hates books that are a rehash of the supplied documentation. Not only does he express this opinion, he's done something about it. This book is less about VB.NET syntax and more about how and why things work the way they do in .NET. Much, much more. He provides advice on when to use certain features that are now available to the programmer, and more importantly, when *not* to use them and why (such as inheritance, and multi-threading to name a couple in-depth topics presented).

VB.NET is not simply an upgrade to Visual Basic 6, but is a new language. The COM/COM+ worlds are left behind, the .NET world is a new and exciting place that opens up a myriad of new possibilities for the VB developer. Dan does an excellent job in pointing out the differences, bringing the reader into the new .NET world. And he has the rare talent of taking very technical topics and explaining them so that we can easily grasp the concepts.

This is not an introductory book, and is not for the beginner. This book is written by a very experienced VB developer for experienced VB developers.

Don't take the plunge into the .NET world without first reading this book! The book is worth its weight in platinum.

I found this book, along with most other Dan Appleman books, to be an excellent choice for learning. As he tells you, this is not for the beginner, in fact that is one of the main reasons I bought the book. Dan has a way with words and examples that explain things every step of the way. I am forever amazed at some of the findings he comes up with and the best part about them is that he shares why and how with you including examples that you can run. Another nice part about this book is that even though the title is that of VB.NET he does cover framework issues as well. It is not just another regurgitation of language syntax changes and that makes it stand out above the rest. If you really want to learn about new issues and methodologies, when to and when not to, how to and why, then this book is definitively for you. I gave this a 5-star rating because I truly felt enlightened when I was done with it. Sure, there are times when it might overwhelm you a little (given some of the IL language and assembler instructions) but when you go back and re-read them, you understand why he had to go there. It now becomes clear why he told you what he did.

Thanks Dan for another great book. You are, in my mind, still *the* guru!

Don't get me wrong: this book is excellent. My main complaint is that the author severely downplays the significance and usefulness of inheritance. I respectfully, but wholeheartedly, disagree with his squeamishness. Finally, VB can take advantage of the power of object-oriented programming. It no longer has to function merely as the Elmer's Glue for Microsoft's hodge-podge of technologies. Now, VBer's can experience the power of creating class hierarchies that are reusable and simplify programming and design. VBer's can now turn to the wealth of Design Pattern and Unified Modeling Language (UML) literature and take advantage of the work of hundreds of other designers who've been using OO technology for over a decade. And because VB.NET is very similar to Java in capabilities, all the OO thinking that has been applied to Java can be gleaned for use with VB.NET.

For ideas about what inheritance and patterns can mean to you, take a look at books such as Object-Oriented Software Construction (the gospel of object-oriented technology), Design Patterns (the gospel of OO design), Object-Oriented Analysis and Design, Thinking in Patterns with Java, UML Distilled, Pattern Hatching, and so on. Don't let anyone write off your inheritance.

There are a lot of books out there for transitioning to VB.NET from VB6. However, before you grab any other book, I strongly suggest "Moving to VB.NET: Strategies, Concepts, and Code" by Dan Appleman. Written from an in-the-trenches, "I've been there" point of view, Dan introduces the reader to .NET using the single best possible approach: from the ground up. Due to the steep learning curve associated with .NET, approaching this subject is tricky, but I feel Dan has done a truly excellent job. Up front, this book is in my opinion the first book a VB6 person should read on the subject. It also helps that it is structured in such a way that it could be easily broken down for a classroom environment, getting a company up to speed.

One thing Dan really stresses is for the reader to familiarize themselves with the MSDN library. That point cannot be stressed enough. Unlike previous versions, MSDN for .NET was written with the VB.NET developer in mind, and is completely VB-friendly. Also, in the rare cases where Dan fails to explain an item right off the bat, such as the `Shared' operator (he does get to it), or the really cool `IntPtr' variable type, just quickly look them up in MSDN. The wealth of available information found there is fantastic.

When you crack Dan's book, please be sure to download the example files (and any errata updates) from the site location he suggests. Being able to view, run, and hack complete listing is an invaluable tool in comprehending the points he is making regarding each subject (I like them just so I can add expository comments once I understand a technique -comments are sparse, but just to keep space tight because much of the code, broken into blocks, is also in the book).

Though easy to read, this book is definitely not one to skip chapters on. If you do not fully understand everything in a previous chapter, the next chapter can be more difficult to digest. I was surprised that often a chapter would require only a second re-read to fully comprehend everything covered. Making reference notes and clarifications in the broad margins as "Notes-To-Self" is also a great help when you finally place this book in your reference library - and it WILL find itself there. This book is loaded with very powerful techniques that you will want to refer back to again and again.

This book has also crushed my habit of harkening back to the glory days of VB6, and of calling VB.NET by derogatory names such as Visual Fred and VB.NOT. Not only does the book explain the differences in structure between VB6 and VB.NET, but in the process it completely turned me on to the VB.NET philosophy and the much more powerful, and most-often much simpler methods of doing them in .NET. Every point I had once griped about, such as, for example, the `lack' of fixed-length strings and arrays in user-defined types was shown to be completely unfounded. Things that I complained that were missing have been in fact replaced by something much better and more powerful.

With this book as a launching point, in a day I can now develop applications under VB.NET that are just as powerful, and run just as fast as the C++ applications I used to develop over several weeks under Visual Studio 6. The book's author has shown me the way toward being comfortable with the.NET environment, and made me excited in my transition to it.

All things considered, after reading Dan Appleman's book, I now wish Microsoft had come out with .NET after VB5.

If you are a guru at VB6, like me, you want as smooth a transition to VB.NET as possible. This book helps soften the bumps. A couple chapters get a little long-winded, but hang in there -- there is more good stuff ahead. This will give you a better idea of where to head next. It is not a how-to-start-doing-VB.NET-code-today type of book. It can be read independent of doing code (i.e., you do not need to open VS.NET IDE to use it).

I've been reading technical books for a long time and each time I pick up a Dan Appleman book I never regret it. With this new book, Dan has delivered another winner. This book does not rehash Microsoft manuals. Nor does it jump right into coding VB.NET. Dan tries, and I believe sucessfully, prepare the reader for more than just programming a new language. He provides extremely valuable information to the reader regarding strategies and concepts used by Microsoft. There is plenty of theory and code packed into this tome. I would certainly recommend this to any VB developer looking to move to VB.NET. It is an easy-read and Dan is really a down-to-earth kinda author. Thanks Dan!

First off, this is not a typical programmer's book. If you are trying to solve a particular problem in VB.NET, you would be best to look elsewhere (as of today, this means to the future as all books out now are beta 1).

The first section of this book deals with the programming mentality and the reasoning behind moving to .NET. If you have never studied the economics of programming, this is a nice subject to study.

The next section is a bit of a history lesson, which is important to understand the why of .NET. When you see where you have been you can better understand the need. Once again, you will not see this in a typical VB.NET book.

The meat of the book is in coding techniques. Even these are approached from a "why you do or do not do this" type of approach. I am in full agreement that many VB developers will mess up inheritance and threading when they start to play with these new "toys".

The book is up to date with beta 2, so any samples you download from the site are beta 2 compliant. The samples, however, are not the focus, just the gravy.

On my wish list, a discussion of design patterns would have completely sewn up the book (OO is going to be a radical change for VB programmers), but this is not a serious detraction with so much good stuff.

Once again, if you want to be spoonfed some programming techniques, look elsewhere. If, instead, you wish to learn the reasoning behind dot net and how (and why) of using the many new features of VB.NET, you will like this book.

With the flood of books being published just to churn out money, i.e., those incoherent tomes written by more than 10 authors, I am becoming frustrated. If you have been a professional developer, you know what I mean. Well, take out your wallet - this one is worth the money. Dan Appleman writes for the professional developer, covering topics that are both interesting and critical to your success with VB.NET. He seems to really "care" about developers and technology, and our success. Thanks for writing a book on .NET that is easy to read, fun, and very educational. I highly recommend this book to anyone, and the fact that I took the time out of my day to write this review should tell you something!

The book does not rehash microsoft documentation; like installing beta 2, system requirements, syntax, ...etc. You can get all of that from microsoft site. Instead, the book shows why and when .NET should be considered as a technology given the problem at hand. It goes deep in the framework of .NET and compares its features with the COM technology showing the potential downside of using COM and how .NET goes around those pitfalls.

The book is for experienced VB developers who are considering the .NET world. I love the book, it is written with a sense of humor that wont bore you. Among all the books I reviewed on the subject This one is the best (even better than the wrox ones).

I'm almost ashamed to admit that I've purchased and read nearly every .Net book currently on the market (8/01). All of these books, or at least those that targeted VB developers, missed an important point - that most average VB developers, even those with several years experience on their shoulders, do not have the knowledge to correctly handle all of the new capabilities of VB.Net. This isn't a knock on VB developers, just a fact that these new features bring with them issues the VB developer has never had to deal with.

Dan has written the book most VB developers will need. He truly understands the design issues VB.Net developers will need to learn. He introduces these new features in a manner that respects the fact that most VB developers understand what inheritance and multithreading is - but have not had the full experience of actually designing and developing with these concepts. Not only are the topics right on target, but Dan's writing is superb and the examples are both realistic and easy to follow.

This is truly a superb book and well deserving of all of the 5 star ratings.