Professional Visual Studio 2005 (Paperback)

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Editorial Reviews

Product Description

• Taking a unique IDE-centric approach, well-respected authors examine the IDE capabilities readers will need to perform specific tasks, demonstrated in the context of building XML Web services
• The only book on the topic that introduces each characteristic of the IDE followed by an example of the context in which that feature is used
• Covers creating custom templates and wizards, reusing code and lightweight code generators, dynamically generating forms through reflections, managing data in the IDE, using the SQL designer to write stored procedures, debugging ASP.NET Web forms, and much more

From the Back Cover

Visual Studio 2005 is an enormous product. Incorporating the latest advances in both Visual Basic® and C# as well as improvements and new features in the user interface, it can be daunting without the kind of guidance this book provides.

In these pages you'll learn to harness every feature of this remarkable development tool. The opening section will familiarize you with the IDE structure and layout, various options and settings, and other core aspects of Visual Studio 2005. Then you will examine each of the nine major categories composing the functions of Visual Studio 2005. Every chapter is cross-referenced, so you can achieve a complete understanding of each feature and how all the elements work together to produce an effective programming environment.

What you will learn from this book

• How to edit Application Configuration and XML resource files
• Automated XML documentation and how to use Outline modes to review your code
• The process for implementing good security
• How to use IntelliSense, regionalize your code, and tag sections of your program for later processing
• Effective ways to test and debug both code and databases
• Timesavers that use regular expressions, Registry hacks, third-party add-ons, and Microsoft® extensions

Who this book is for

This book is for developers who are new to Visual Studio as well as programmers with some experience who want to learn about features they may have overlooked. Familiarity with the traditional programming model and both C# and Visual Basic languages is assumed.

Wrox Professional guides are planned and written by working programmers to meet the real-world needs of programmers, developers, and IT professionals. Focused and relevant, they address the issues technology professionals face every day. They provide examples, practical solutions, and expert education in new technologies, all designed to help programmers do a better job.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 912 pages
• Publisher: Wrox; illustrated edition edition (August 28, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0764598465
• ISBN-13: 978-0764598463
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7.2 x 2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #282,881 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

25 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent overview of features, but focuses mostly on VB and C#, January 22, 2007

By	Sitting in Seattle - See all my reviews

Professional Visual Studio 2005 fills an important niche: it is for experienced developers who are new to Visual Studio and need an explanation of the environment and all of its features. The book fulfills that need reasonably well, but it is important to understand what you will and will not get from it.

What it does well is to explain the environment and the general approach to development that underlies all of the key aspects of Visual Studio. This begins with the structure of the IDE and its options, then proceeds through a vast tour of Visual Studio concepts, .NET framework fundamentals, various parts of the development architecture (such as security and database connections), an introduction to other features such as developing for devices and team services, and moderately in-depth explorations of important topics such as debugging and deployment. As such, it serves as a combination of a general overview and a concise manual.

Of particular value is that it describes and exposes many features that one might otherwise overlook. Visual Studio 2005 is a huge, complex piece of software, and there are capabilities and options (for everything from IDE options to XML to automation) that are not apparent at first.

What it does not do is to address the aspects of Visual Studio that are specific to individual languages. As is appropriate for a book for experienced developers, it does not present much code or "how to" examples. However, it would be helpful if it discussed more of the differences that affect development in languages besides C# and VB. There is a consistent emphasis on those languages and the [...]
It also presents only minimal tutorial aspects. Although the general steps are described, there are not detailed walkthroughs of such steps as how to compile, build, and debug programs in a given language. It would be nice to have a few chapters on such topics as "porting Unix C code to Visual Studio", or "Moving from Borland C++ Builder to Visual Studio". Those are not critical omissions, but would be nice for some readers. Finally, the book is primarily about the usage of VS from the point of view of individual developers; it focuses mostly on the "professional" version, not on the specific enterprise/team capabilities (which are briefly covered in one chapter).

In short, this book is a good, comprehensive conceptual "manual" for Visual Studio 2005, especially for VB and C# developers. However, there is still an unfilled niche for a book on "Visual Studio 2005 for C++ Developers".

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Huge computer Book, Just on the IDE Itself, March 10, 2007

By	John Matlock "Gunny" (Winnemucca, NV) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Microsoft's Visual Studio 2005 is an enormous product. It is Microsoft's standard and proposed developmental platform for virtually all programmers. It's basically an IDE (Integrated Development Environment) on steroids. That means it starts as a text editor so that you can type in the programs you are writing. Added to this is a series of help menus, debugging aids, and other things to assist you in writing programs. After you get your program written, then there are additional tools that will assist you in running the program, tracing the flow control, putting in breakpoints, etc.

Being Microsoft, the main emphasis in Visual Studio is Visual Basic and Microsoft's C# while other languages are covered to a somewhat lessor extent. This book does not cover the languages themselves. It's a full size, thick book just on the IDE itself.

But on the IDE it has everything there is to know about using the IDE. Especially helpful are the authors comments on various third party add ins you can get off the web, often at no cost.

The last chapter in the book is on the Visual Studio Team System which talks about using Visual Studio to manage geographically distributed software projects that may be in development all over the world at once. While this chapter will give you the fundamentals, there is another whole book on using Team System. You'll just get an introduction from this book.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A very solid intro - even with all the errors, March 11, 2007

By	Rob Hawkins - See all my reviews

Yes this book is riddled with typos and coding errors, but it's still a very well written and informative introduction to VB 2005.
The chapters are really easy to read (not like normal textbooks), with solid examples and small end-of-chapter exercises to reinforce ideas.
If it had been properly proofed, it would easily get 5 stars.