Customer Reviews

Sams Teach Yourself Microsoft Visual Basic .NET 2003 in 24 Hours Complete Starter Kit (Sams Teach Yourself...in 24 Hours)

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Every once in a long while, a great book comes along that forces even someone like me to post a public opinion. This book unlike a lot of other "great" books takes you step by step and actually show you "HOW it is done" and not just tell you what you are to do.

After trying another VB.NET Beginners book that was highly touted on the internet I almost gave up.

I came accross this book on the shelf of Borders just by chance
and what a pleasure, pure pleasure.

This is a sample of how these kinds of books should be written

THANKS MR. FOXALL !!!!!!!!

James Foxall is that very rare author, a person who not only knows his subject matter, but also has the ability to teach it to others.
Right away in Chapter One you get to build an interesting application that makes you want to learn more, but the real magic is in the way he takes you there. You learn a concept not in isolation, but within the context of the other key concepts needed to make it work. James is able to teach you just enough about these other concepts to make sense, without swamping you with detail. At the same time, he is careful to explain that he will provide more detail later on, at a more suitable point.
The result is that you learn quickly in a framework that makes sense at all times, and where you know your questions are going to be answered further on. In effect you almost feel mentored as you move from chapter to chapter.
This is an excellent book for people starting out to learn Visual Basic.NET.
It should also be compulsory reading for all authors of technical books. This is how technical books ought to be.

This book is for you if you have little experience programming or zero knowledge of Visual Basic .NET (and Visual Studio .NET). The book is basically written in 2 halves. The first deals with the capabilities and features of Visual Studio .NET, the Integrated Development Environment (IDE) which you will definitely need. I found this book did a good job at introducing a total newbie (myself) to the VS interface. The second half of the book introduced Visual Basic programming principles, which I found boring since I had some programming experience. I guess it would be ok if i were a total newbie, but even then I have seen better introductions to programming in "professional" editions that used more code examples and went more in depth into coding...after all you are reading this because you are an aspiring programmer, right? Why sugar coat things that don't need to be? No matter how you slice or dice it, at some point you will have to get your hands dirty with code. My suggestion on improving the book: more code examples! The best book I ever read on programming actually used all examples towards the creation of one program, so that you learned the language, its application, and development style...This book will help you learn the interface to visual studio, but it may leave you wanting for real programming examples. Also it has zero info on designing applications for the web...all info is geared towards windows forms.

If you just starting out with VB.net then this is a good book to start out with. A well written book that keeps your interest and presents its subject matter in a straightforward, easy to understand manor. Each lesson builds on the previous lesson enabling the beginner to get a grasp of the subject matter quickly and easily as well as build a good foundation for more advanced books. Excellent book for the beginner.

I'm a big fan of Foxall's books, particularly his MCSD in a Nutshell book. This is an excellent introduction to Visual Basic .NET. Visual Basic .NET is a different beast from Visual Basic 6, and this book does a good job of teaching you the new way of doing things. I was a little afraid of getting a book that rehashes vb 6 material, but this book is clearly a ".NET" book. Highly recommended!

Great introduction to VB .NET and the Visual Studio IDE. I am a novice MS Access developer migrating to Visual Studio .NET. This books is an excellent quick start for devloping with VB .NET. But don't expect to get in depth. It's just a primer, but well worth it if that's what you need. You will need to continue learning with other books. Also, the DVD-ROM 60 day trial version of Visual Studio is great. I'm going to buy the full version when done.

I'm a Cobol and PL1 programmer with 20 years experince in the IT industry. I wanted to make the transition to newer technologies, including VB.NET. This meant I had to start understanding Object Oriented programming as well as the VB.NET syntax and what it can do.

This book is GREAT in the sense that it takes you step by step through VB.NET features. Halfway though the book I was confidently adding stuff to the exercises I had learnt earlier in the book.

I can see that the book may be too 'simple' for experienced VB & VB.NET programmers but don't believe that is the target market for this book anyway.

This book is pitched at the beginner programmer and achieves what it sets out do to. It gets you going.

Well done, James, and Thanks. AJ.

This is an excellent book and Yes, you can learn to program in Visual Basic.Net in 24 hours. This book gives you the details the other books leave out. The book flows well and builds a solid foundation. This is better then the college text I am using for VB.Net. Buy it, you won't be sorry!

I have been using SAMS Teach Yourself books for quite some time now and must say all of them have provided me with a lot of knowledge that I have been able to use in my work environment. I have also attended a few of Microsoft instructor led courses and found the book to be at the same level. The advantage with having a book like this is that you can study in your own time and the cost is only a fraction. This book is far the best I have read so far and recommend anyone to buy.

Having previously used Visual Basic 6 tutorial books I have been very pleased with the clarity and communicative skills of this book. Whilst I appreciate that there is much more to leart about VB.net I have been able to write smoothly flowing commercial applications with the sole help of this book. Well done James Foxall!