Customer Reviews

Programming Microsoft Visual Basic .NET (Core Reference)

5 star:		(61)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

This is the best programming book I have ever read. 1600 of pages of intelligent descriptions and code examples. First you learn the VB.NET language, then you dive into chapters that cover a specific realms like Attributes, Threading, Win32, ADO.NET, ASP.NET, and alot more.

As big as the book is, it does not cover everything and I dont think any book could. Hopefully the author comes up with a volumn II book that covers Network classes, Remoting, and more.

Note that this book is not for the faint, I would recommend reading a beginners VB.NET book. If you have VB6 experience then you will adjust real quickly because this book highlights the differences in comparison to VB.NET. In fact there are alot of VB6 examples side-by-side w/ VB.NET examples. As a bonus the book comes with a cd that contains Franscesco's VB 6 book. There will be many times the VB.NET book will point you to a chapter in that VB 6 book.

Sometimnes it amazes me how this author managed to know so much about VB.net in so short a time since the product was released. His style is stimulating; his coverage of the subject matter is superb, and the organization of the text is simply great.
If you must have one book on VB.net, make sure it is this one. For one, it will save you much money. You don't have to spend your hard-earned dollars on books that are little more than a rehash of the online documentation. Secondly (and more importantly), you will also save time, because you'll be able to delve right away into the meat of VB.net without wasting time on trivial issues.
Of course, this book does not cover everything there is to know about the .net platform. However, it gives you a very robust foundation in everything vb.net and the new .net platform. It is my firm belief that as long as you stay with the new platform, you will have cause to refer again and again to this book.
Mr. Balena happens to be one of those rare technical authors that know how to write.
The only little problem I had with the book was the CD-ROM that does not contain the electronic version of the book (it contains the VB 6 version). I contacted the author and he offered a convincing explanation of why that was left out. (Some buyers loaded the vb 6 version on their websites, for free download by anyone, causing huge losses to the publishers. So they decided to leave it out in the new edition).
Even then, I still heartily recommend this superb book.

If you are a Beginner to VB.NET this is the book to buy, it will take you through the complexity of VB.NET as if you were reading a magazine. Is an amazing quality that this well know author possess.

And if you are an expert programmer, (you probably grow up reading Mr. Balena book on VB.6) .You'll find in this book an incredible resource, of clean code techniques and really useful examples ( not like most books out there, full of bogus examples) . This will be your desk reference book.

Francesco Balena is the best teacher of Visual Basic .NET, no one else comes close to him. The way he writes it makes it so easy to understand. Suddenly Visual Basic .NET makes sense.

I use VB.NET every day and regularly refer to this book for tips, techniques, and explanation of concepts. I use it so much that it's starting to get worn out. As a long time VB6 developer I similarly wore out my copy of Balena's earlier book, "Programming Visual Basic 6.0".

This is a HUGE book (1500+ pages), but unlike a lot of similar tomes there is not one wasted page. Every bit of it is good, useful material. It is aimed primarily at experienced VB6 programmers who want to move to .NET, so unless you already know VB6 pretty well you may find some of his explanations hard to follow. If you DO know VB6 and want to move to .NET, this book will get you there more effectively than any other book on the market - bar none. I've read a lot of .NET books, so I know what I'm talking about.

This is not a re-write of his earlier VB6 book. It is completely new. In fact, wherever VB.NET remains unchanged from VB6 Mr. Balena refers to chapters in his old book (which is included in electronic form on the CD). This is the only "flaw" I've found in this book, as I sometimes have to examine both books to get a complete picture of certain subjects.

This book covers .NET well enough that even a C# programmer could benefit from it. ADO.NET, ASP.NET, WinForms, XML Web Services, Assemblies and Appdomains, Reflection, Regular Expressions, Delegates, Threading, GDI - all that and more are covered thoroughly and with lots of good code examples.

The code examples are generally of high quality, and they illustrate clever tricks and techniques that will prove useful in day to day programming tasks. The code alone is worth the price of the book.

Francesco Balena's writing style is easy to follow. He covers the subject in a clear, businesslike manner that is neither overly dry nor overly frivolous.

Long story short: this is one of the best technical books I've ever owned, and when my copy of this book completely wears out I will buy a new one.

Now if only I could find a book that covers C# as well as this one covers VB...

The main reason I bought this book is because I am familiar with Francesco Balena's writings and I admire his work.
On important thing to note is that this is not a book to read, this is a reference book.

If you want reasons to buy this book, here are the reasons:
- You will not appreciate this book if you did not start developing in .net and stumbled upon tasks that you did not know how to do.
- It is clear and concise and you will not need to go through the terrible MSDN documentation (sometimes of course MSDN is unavoidable)
-almost everything you need is in this book. You will find at least one simple example of each topic that will aid you to understand the basic idea. Some topics are covered more extensively than others.

If you want reasons not to buy this book, here are the reasons:
- XML, ASP .NET, and ASP data binding controls are not covered extensively here. If this is what you are looking for, try other books.
- The book dwells too much into Win32 application and as a web developer this is not useful for me (around 318 pages). Even ADO.NET is covered with relation to Win32 Application not web forms
- This is something I saw in almost all books I read about .net.
Class libraries that has no examples in the MSDN is almost absent from .Net books. It would be nice to have a book that talks about these forgotten libraries.

In general, I did not regret buying this book since it proved to be a simple and easy way to "How to" do things in .Net

Programming Visual Basic .NET by Francesco Balena builds on the success of the author's previous programming book for Visual Basic 6. This huge 1600 page book provides the most complete coverage of Visual Basic .NET that I have seen.

This book isn't for beginner programmers who wish to learn Visual Basic .NET. It is aimed at experienced Visual Basic 6 developers who want to take full advantage of the new .NET Framework.

The book provides complete coverage of advanced new object-oriented features, the common language runtime, multithreaded programs, Windows Forms, GDI+ graphic programming, Windows Services, ADO.NET classes for databases, ASP.NET Web Forms, and XML Web Services. Also included are many advanced optimization techniques and tips for leveraging the power of the Visual Studio .NET environment. For those who love code examples, you won't be disappointed. The book is filled with short code examples that illustarte how each specific .NET feature works.

The software that accompanies the book includes a CD containing the project source code which demonstartes the concepts discussed in each chapter. Also available on the CD is the previous edition of this book in electronic form. In addition, the book includes a sixty day trial version of Visual Studio .NET on DVD.

Programming Visual Basic .NET has received alot of well deserved praise from the Visual Basic community. I found the book to be very thorough, concise, and well written. This is one book that all experienced Visual Basic developers must have by their side.

I have read through a large number of books on the .NET Framework, most of them using C# rather than VB.NET. Although I prefer to program in C# rather than VB.NET, this book is absolutely the BEST book on the .NET Framework.

Francesco Balena's treatment of the .NET Framework is extremely thorough and comprehensive. In addition, I love Francesco Balena's prose and writing style. He writes and explains the concepts so clearly. He also supplies lots of excellent coding examples to illustrate his points.

If you are looking for a definitive and comprehensive explanation of the .NET Framework, with plenty of coding examples, look no further. This is THE book.

Although I program in C#, this is my GO-TO book when I need a thorough explanation from the ground up on most subjects within the .NET Framework. Much better than any C# book I have read.

I have only 2 criticisms of this book.

1. Francesco Balena, when are you going to re-write this book in C#?

2. This is one heavy weight volume with almost 1600 pages. Due to a combination of its huge size, and it heavy use in my library as I keep referring to it for answers, the binding is starting to fall apart. The publisher should consider either heavier binding or putting it into 2 volumes.

Francesco Balena, thank you for such clear and outstanding explanations of the .NET Framework!

Tony Lin
Fremont, CA

I have several books on vb.net and asp.net. Yet, as good as those books are, I've found myself using only this book since I received it over a week ago. This book does not simply gloss over or "introduce" you to concepts. Every chapter provides enough coverage to really get you programming, rather than researching. In addition to 1500+ pages of informative and concise writing, the book's CD features sample applications that demonstrate generally simple, though effective code. And no, as reviewers have pointed out, the CD does not contain a copy of its namesake book. Frankly, MS press isn't obligated to provide any CD at all, so I don't see any problems with that, especially since the CD that is included is very useful indeed.

It should be noted that this book is not a "teach yourself in xx hours" endeavor. There are some good beginning books for learning VB.NET from scratch, and that would be a better place to start. Although I don't have them yet, I imagine that this book would provide an excellent stepping stone to MS Press' .NET Framework reference and the VB.NET Programming Techniques book.

The main reason I bought this book is because I am familiar with Francesco Balena's writings and I admire his work.

On important thing to note is that this is not a book to read, this is a reference book.

If you want reasons to buy this book, here are the reasons:
- You will not appreciate this book if you did not start developing in .net and stumbled upon tasks that you did not know how to do.
- It is clear and concise and you will not need to go through the terrible MSDN documentation (sometimes of course MSDN is unavoidable)
-almost everything you need is in this book. You will find at least one simple example of each topic that will aid you to understand the basic idea. Some topics are covered more extensively than others.

If you want reasons not to buy this book, here are the reasons:
- XML, ASP .NET, and ASP data binding controls are not covered extensively here. If this is what you are looking for, try other books.
- The book dwells too much into Win32 application and as a web developer this is not useful for me (around 318 pages). Even ADO.NET is covered with relation to Win32 Application not web forms
- This is something I saw in almost all books I read about .net.
Class libraries that has no examples in the MSDN is almost absent from .Net books. It would be nice to have a book that talks about these forgotten libraries.

In general, I did not regret buying this book since it proved to be a simple and easy way to "How to" do things in .Net

This is the most through book on VB.Net I've ever found. It's a steep read, but if there are any dark corners of VB.Net that haven't had light shed on them, then you aren't useing VB to it's fullest potential, and you haven't read this book.

The current price of this book on Amazon right now (~50.00) makes it more than a steal with the amount of information in it. Espcially compared to the avarage cost of a class in any programming language.

Though the book is written for a programmer who is at least a novice in VB6, certain versions of the book provide a CD with an eBook of the authors VB6 book (with code examples) as well as a PDF of this book. So, if you are just getting into VB.Net you'll have some place to turn when Balena starts refrencing well known VB6 syntax.