Customer Reviews

Sams Teach Yourself Visual Basic .NET in 21 Days

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

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.

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.

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.

I enrolled into an Advanced Visual Basic 6.0 Class at at local Community College and in the middle of the semister, the teacher and classmates all agreed to change our study to VB.NET. We all agreed to purchase and use "Teach Yourself Visual Basic.NET in 21 Days", by Duncan Mackenzie and Kent Sharkey. To our suprise, 80% of the book revolved around using VB.Net's Console. A large majority of the programing is done using the console. All of the students in the Class and the Teacher are VERY dissatisfied with the explanations and examples and the way the authors explained techniques in simple programing. If you are new to VB.NET or are looking for something that will help you understand the VB.NET framework this is not the book for you. If you do purchase this book, buy the biggest Reference Book you can.

I got to page 83 and trashed the book, did anyone proof this. This book would be a nightmare to anybody trying to learn programing, give yourself a break and pass on this one!

I got the book for free. I am an ASP.NET developer in beginning stages (less than 6 mos).

I immediately noticed that the book seemed more for intermediate level developers than beginners because of the sentence structure and vocabulary in the programming sense. I felt that the authors were writing to a target audience that excluded myself.

There are many things beginners will want more details about when they are not available. Some of the sentences don't make much sense without re-reading several times. The data access chapter is intimidating. The paragraphs at times can be short while the code samples are long. Also agreed is the fact that the code samples themselves can be weak. Code that is too short/weak is not usable for illustrating useful points, whereas code that is too long/complex frustrates the reader. Some of the code in the book seems to go from one spectrum to the other, not settling somewhere in the middle.

I liked how the book covers a little bit about the web and web forms in addition to Windows forms. I also liked how the book seemed to have relevant chapters on many different things, like deployment, XML, OOP, etc. To me however, this book may be more of a reference than an introduction to VB.NET.

I think the data access chapter (in time) will be very useful to me. The error-handling section and OOP section are already helpful.

This book covers essential ground for a novice. If you want good coverage of important basic subjects, this book is for you. I found, that the WROX book (Beginning Visual Basic. NET) skimmed over certain subjects essential to novice (highly recommended nonetheless). ....

This book starts with an excellent overview and basics. By the time you come to 3rd day, Everything looks strange.Author fails to explain properly. Most of the codes do not work and comes up with errors. If you are a beginer to VB.NET do not make the same mistake of buying this book as I did. Their website do not offer any fixes either.

This is one of the worst Programming books I have Ever seen.

This book assumes you know everything! It can be a fair book only for a experienced Visual Basic.NET programmer.

It does a poor job in teaching, organizing ideas.

The book is around 650 pages; it has lots of irrelative stories are inside it.

I'm not sorry for the money I wasted on this book but rather for my precious time I wasted on this, while learning very little.
Bottom line:

If you are trying to learn VB.Net or migrating from VB6 to VB.NET there many better books in the market.

ive read these reviews, and im not stupid, but im not exactly the smartest thing. The gripe about this book is the fact that the author gives code but does not explain where to put the code, that it because the author is just showing you what the code will look like. It's like lookin at a window display and realizing that thats just what it looks like, and not what it looks like in your house, i hope that helps, im a big fan of SAMS work, and i hope any beginner seriously buy this book