Sams Teach Yourself Visual Basic .NET in 21 Days [Paperback]

Duncan Mackenzie (Author), Kent Sharkey (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0672320665 | ISBN-13: 978-0672320668 | Publication Date: November 29, 2001

Sams Teach Yourself Visual Basic.NET in 21 Days provides readers with 21 structured lessons with step-by-step guidance to real-world tasks. Each chapter also contains exercises that reinforce the lessons learned in each chapter. Tips, Notes, and Cautions provide additional advice from the authors on how to get up-to-speed and programming quickly with Visual Basic.NET.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

Sams Teach Yourself Visual Basic.NET in 21 Days provides readers with 21 structured lessons with step-by-step guidance to real-world tasks. Each chapter also contains exercises that reinforce the lessons learned in each chapter. Tips, Notes, and Cautions provide additional advice from the authors on how to get up-to-speed and programming quickly with Visual Basic.NET.

About the Author

Duncan Mackenzie is an MCSD, MCSE, and MCT who works for the MSDN (http://msdn.microsoft.com) group at Microsoft out of Redmond, Washington. He is an excited Visual Basic .NET programmer who has an annoying habit of writing the occasional article. Duncan also has been active as a Visual Basic trainer and has taught many courses ranging from intermediate to advanced VB programming. Duncan has written and collaborated on a number of books on Microsoft technologies, including Platinum Edition Using Visual Basic 6.0 and Word 2000 VBA Programmer's Reference. He also speaks at many conferences focused on Microsoft development.

Kent Sharkey is an MCSD, MCSE, MCT, and MCP+SB. He currently works at Microsoft as a Technical Evangelist within its .NET Solutions Group, his current assignment being the .NET Framework and Visual Studio .NET. Before joining Microsoft, Kent had many years of experience as a trainer and consultant, concentrating on architecting and writing n-tier applications using Visual Basic. He has written and collaborated on a number of books on Visual Basic, including MCSD Fast Track: Visual Basic Exam 70 P175; MCSD Fast Track: Visual Basic Exam 70 P176; MCSD Fast Track: 4 in 1; and Beginning Visual Basic 6.0 Application Development. He is a regular speaker at various developer conferences focused on Microsoft development.

Product Details

• Paperback: 688 pages
• Publisher: Sams (November 29, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0672320665
• ISBN-13: 978-0672320668
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 7.2 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 2.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,648,617 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Everything in its right place..., November 13, 2002

By 

"[e-mail]" (Edwardsville, PA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Sams Teach Yourself Visual Basic .NET in 21 Days (Paperback)

I understand why the people who wrote these other reviews were disappointed. But I don't think this book is useless. If you want a training manual for Visual Studio.NET, definitely go elsewhere. However, if you're like me, and you want to understand how the technologies came about, how they relate to each other, and how they fit into the grand scheme of things, don't write this book off too quickly. There are a lot of good narrative passages that have helped me over some basic humps.

I totally agree that the code samples are weak... I'm only on day three and have found examples that just simply DON'T do what the book says they will... But I'm still going to read it for the narrative, and then get another, more training oriented book for learning the IDE's ins and outs.

6 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Worst Programming Book Ever, July 18, 2002

By 

Ivor Petrie "Ivor the Engineer" (Lynchburg, VA, United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Sams Teach Yourself Visual Basic .NET in 21 Days (Paperback)

I learn mostly from books and have bought Sams Series stuff in the past and have been very satisfied - their learn C# and C++ although not brilliant are certainly worth the money. This book however is written by people who don't use or teach the basics of the .NET interface. There are almost no "visual" examples just bucket loads of unexplained code and syntax that doesn't even work in practice and the author hardly uses the visual interface at all, which is the whole point of a "visual language". This is the WORST book on this subject I have read to date and I've read and used 5 others. If you are a beginner, buy Prof Smiley's Learn to Program VB.NET, if you want a professional reference buy the best - Francesco Balena's "Programming MS Visual Basic.NET or if you want multiple worked examples buy Microsofts "Visual Basic .NET - Step by Step". I have all 3 and they are all very good value for what I state. This book should be banned and everyone should demand their money back, vast areas of the book deal with console input. If you want to input that way then you are seriously wasting your money using VB.NET as your programming language choice! Get real Sam's this book is a farce and I certainly could never have programmed in VB after 365 days with your book never mind 21.

6 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A lot of good material, but rough for a novice., March 6, 2002

By 

Dr. Robert C.A. Goff, MCSD, MCSE, MCDBA "Coun... (Blacksburg, VA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Sams Teach Yourself Visual Basic .NET in 21 Days (Paperback)

If you're a VB6 programmer, then this book will be smooth reading, mostly. Although the authors state that individuals new to programming are their target audience, there is scant elementary conceptual material (and intro projects). There are also many leaps of faith. By that I mean that code listings in the early chapters may be aimed at introducing simple concepts, but include syntax that is covered in later chapters, and that may or may not be explained in the listing "analysis."

In general, I think that, by the end of the book, most significant topics are covered adequately for an intro text. Projects are generally suitable for the material, and sometimes clever. (As usual, there are a few typos and ordinary errors, but anyone beyond the novice level will be able to spot them and run the code.) As of early March 2002, the code listings are available for download from the Sams website.

WEAKNESSES: Some of the chapters seem out of sequence. Chapter 5, "Application Architecture in .Net," belongs in a different book. There are a few slips, like using the "Set" keyword for object assignment in one of the listings. Another problem, resulting from Microsoft's waffling in the betas, is that the discussion on array dimensions reflects the early beta version, in which the array dimension is the number of elements (instead of the upper bound), rather than the release version (in which the dimension is the upper bound). While the book is a good start, it is by no means comprehensive. (You'll need to go to "Teach Yourself MORE VB.Net in 21 Days.") I think the most glaring weaknesses are the shortage of hands-on code in the first seven chapters, and the emphasis on console applications to illustrate early concepts. While console apps are expedient for an experienced programmer, it leaves novices wondering if they're studying the right language.

STRENGTHS: For a VB6 programmer moving to .Net, this is the first book I've seen that presents enough plain vanilla code to calm their .Net jitters. Most of the other texts, such as Dan Appleman's excellent book, "Moving to VB.Net" spend so much effort on the advanced features in .Net that an experienced programmer is led to believe that learning .Net is like having to learn Klingon syntax. Mackenzie and Sharkey show its kinder side. The last seven chapters are particularly well written. I should also add that this book seems better focused than its predecessor, "TY VB6 in 21 Days".

CONCLUSION: A fairly decent intro for experienced VB6 programmers. A novice can get through this, but it may burn quite a few calories.