Customer Reviews

Visual Basic 2010 Programmer's Reference (Wrox Programmer to Programmer)

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This book is an excellent coverage of Visual Basic in the Visual Studio 2010 environment. Over 1000 pages of reference material including appendices. The book is well written, comprehensive, and concise. A reference book needs a good index and this book has one.

I purchased the book in April, 2010. It is now three months later and I briefed the reference and am writing my first Visual Bssic program in years. The programming environment has changed dramatically and this book is an entensive guide to my requirements. The text offers code within the book and links to many sources for assistance. In addition the author offers help through e-mail assistance, which is very timely. I don't think you can go wrong with this book for the money.

Rod Stephens, all times amazed me with his books and this one is not an exception.
The Visual Basic 2010 Programmer's Reference, is a great textbook written with the accumulation of experiences from VB 7.0, 7.1, 8, and VB (9) 2009.
Visual Basic 2010, is the best among the (Visual Basic) .NET, and Rod has been able to present a very good book, that can be use for the beginners as well for the experienced programmers.

VB 2010, the program, is full of good and great features that allow an easy programming, eliminating "almost all errors" from the point of view of the language and allow, more clear and powerful programs. This book is helping to accomplish this and more with very well detailed examples and also with the support of the Wrox and VB-Helper.

The way Rod, presents the many topics in the book, is remarkable for the simplicity he uses to explain every single statement, etc and for the thing, we as programmers are looking for: KNOW-TO, KNOW-HOW, HOW-TO. Rod is very good in each one and the book is clear about all of them.
As in any book, there are some chapters, that are more interesting for the reader.

I have read and worked out the 37 Chapters and the appendices, and the time and money are worth.

Because VB 2010, have not been completely released and still pending more software, we can wait to get the Crystal Reports and other goodies and knowing Rod, will come out with very good new material.

I have several of Rod Stephen's books. This one is a great reference book jam packed with examples. I have already used the book to get myself out of several jams. Rod provides in-depth information where it is needed. Rod covers everything including WCF and LINQ. The appendices are also a wealth of information. The book download code works and Rod provides great examples. If you want a great resource book to add to your collection, this is the book for you.

This book is a true gem! Many books will use the word "Reference" in the title, this book truly is a great refrence. It has the widest range of topic coverage I have seen in a beginner's book in a long time; it covers topics ranging from IDE navigation, to printing, to Object Oriented Programming (OOP) practices, to Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF). It structures the topics in a very easy to jump around method; which, to me, makes it a great reference tool.

Want to learn to bind data to a control in Windows Forms? Go to this book. Want to learn what polymorphism and inheritance are? Go to this book. Want to learn to print from text boxes and include images? Go to this book! Want to be well rounded in the VB.Net language? This is the book for you! Want to learn to be an astronaut? Find a different book!!!

What makes this book stand out more than the others is that it covers topics like Printing, Graphics, and image processing. These topics can be hard to find in most any books, rather it be an advanced book or a beginner book.

The author of this book is very reachable, and quite quick and polite in his replies when contacting about a topic in his book.

I strongly recommend this book to anyone who programs in Visual Basic (or wants to) as a profession or a hobby. This book contains material that you typically would buy 2 or 3 books to cover; and this book covers very hard to find materials.

I'm a 10+ year programming professional who adapted to VB.Net (and C#) when it came out in 2000; and this book has provided many "ah ha" and "oh yeah, I forgot about that feature" moments!

I hope you find the value and enjoy this book as much as I have!

Thanks,
James R.

NOTE to publishers/authors: How about writing a book about printing as whole? Try finding a book that covers printing a DataGrid (whether it's the entire grid or selected cells)...I couldn't find one. Could this be a missed niche?

Are you a Visual Basic 4/5/6 programmer attempting to make the leap to Visual Basic .NET, but find you struggle with information gaps between the two environments? If so, then the book "Visual Basic 2010 Programmer's Reference" by Rod Stephens is for you.

Are you an experienced Visual Basic .NET programmer that finds the occasional need to look up information critical to the completion of your project? I say this book is also for you.

In my struggle to transition from Visual Basic 5 to the modern Visual Basic .NET, I desperately needed a resource to help me move from a comfortable environment to one that I found left me uncertain about my programming abilities. While searching for a resource, I came across several references to Mr. Stephens' book. After reviewing some sample text online, I decided to purchase the book without further inquiries. Several days and a few hours after the book's arrival, I realized I had made an excellent choice. While other reference books sit in within a few feet of my desk, Mr. Stephen's book has a special place on my desk (when I am not carrying it around and skimming through its pages for more morsels of information).

Be aware that "Visual Basic 2010 Programmer's Reference" is supplemented with electronic resources. Many, if not all, code samples within the book are also available for download at Mr. Stephens' invaluable web site, vb-helper.com. You will also find additional resources at the publisher's web site, wrox.com.

I highly recommend this book. "Visual Basic 2010 Programmer's Reference" will make a fine addition to your library.

Lately, I've been getting pretty tired of spending hard earned money for over-priced books where 2/3rds of the book is filled with fluff or 'look what I can do' chapters - when I purchase a book I want to get to the meat and potatoes with regards to a programming language (I can't remember everything because I'm writing at any given time in three of four languages and I prefer a book over online help). Here the author clearly states what every thing does - short and sweet! I get my answers quickly rather than skimming thru endless books that make me work at finding a resolution. I would like to see more books produced like this! It was an easy read (it took a 3-day weekend to go through it and surprisingly I learned a couple of new things).

I already have the 2008 version of his book. I was disappointed that there didn't seem to see enough new information to justify having the 2010 as well. In particular, it would have been nice to have a section devoted to differences including things not present in VB2008.

That said, I found and continue to find the 2008 version quite useful. So if you don't already have that one, then the 2010 version would be a good thing to purchase.

I'm in the process of moving old programs from VB 6 and 2005 to 2010. I was looking for something to get me started LINQ in VB as I have yet to use it and this book has been very helpful. By going through the book and the code examples that I downloaded from the web site I was able to figure out what I needed in less than a hour. Of which I think is pretty good considering I have zero exp with LINQ.
Not only has this given me a jump start with LINQ but it has also helped with the changes from previous versions to 2010. All in all a great reference book

This book covers an amazing amount of material and is an excellent reference book when you need specifics on performing a VB task. Although it's not really a tutorial and it has more material than the average VB programmer will need, those sections can easily be skipped (and referenced at a later time if needed). The Index and Appendices are very complete and well organized.

This is a really good book as a reference for Visual Basic 2010. It is well written and complete.