101 Microsoft® Visual Basic® .NET Applications (Paperback)

~ 3 Leaf Solutions (Author) "Visual Studio .NET 2003 is an incremental release over Visual Studio .NET 2002, yet it still contains numerous enhancements of interest to developers..." (more)
Key Phrases: custom navigation controls, sample application shows, namespace routing table, End Sub, Visual Studio, Private Sub (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

Flattens the learning curve for Visual Basic .NET by providing working applications with complete code, helpful instructions, commentary, and pointers to more information.

Product Details

• Paperback: 592 pages
• Publisher: Microsoft Press (July 9, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0735618917
• ISBN-13: 978-0735618916
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 7.3 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #138,371 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

72 of 75 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Available for free download at msdn.microsoft.com, June 5, 2004

By	J Bucknoff, PMP (Fort Lee, NJ USA) - See all my reviews

These are 101 code examples, provided by Microsoft, offering various "how-to"'s in the form of code samples. Some of the topics are:
* creating menus
* validating listboxes
* how to use reflection
* receiving and processing data using a SQLDataReader
* comparing data binding in winforms and webforms
* creating a Windows Service
* how to use role-based security
* the try / catch / finally block for exception handling
* understanding the garbage collector
as well as dozens others (101 in all, right?) including several examples of using GDI+ in Winforms.

Code, documentation and, where needed, support files (e.g., .txt or .xml files) are provided.

This is good stuff but the fact is, you can down the entire set of code and documentation for free at:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/vbasic/downloads/default.aspx

In fact, Microsoft has updated these 101 Code examples (originally designed for VS.NET 2002 and originally released in early 2003) for release 1.1 of the .NET Framework and VS.NET 2003. Both the original and updated 101 Samples are available for download along with 101 Samples for C#.

I recommend these code examples, but I suggest you just download them rather than buy the physical book.

The code, itself, get 4 stars for usuability. If the book was free (or the material was not already free), then the book would get 4 stars, too. I won't take stars away just because you can get the material for free.

Why not 5 stars? Some of the explanations could be clearer. Some of the code examples are more like snippets than fully usuable components, programs or apps, so you will need to study the code, but customize it for your own use.

19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A book is more than just the code, October 1, 2004

By	John S (Seattle, WA) - See all my reviews

Jerry Bucknoff wrote a review where he says skip the book because you can just download the code. I don't get this. I buy a book for more than just the CD stuffed in the back. This book has 500+ pages that taught me how to do in VB.NET, the things I knew how to do in VB6. Maybe if you're a rocket scientist, you can just stare at the code and learn everything, but those 500 pages really got me up to speed on .NET.

19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars If only this book came out two years ago..., November 15, 2003

By	William G. Ryan "Uber Book Nerd" (Atlanta, GA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I've been developing .NET apps for just about two years since beta 1 and really wish this book was around when I first started. The only thing I can say bad about it is that I would have liked it before I spent a lot of time trial-and-erroring my way through things. I can't blame the authors though, books this cool take a while to write!

It's really a cool layout and and you feel yourself caught in the momentum. Example after example and very concise and to the point. Few books make their point(s) so quickly and succinctly. Not a lot of fluff or general comments (which certainly belong in many books), but it really gets to the point on each and every example. I found it very easy to read, it made me want to read on, it was very well written and all of the code worked flawlessly.

If you are starting out in .NET, this book will save you HOURS, and in many instances, DAYS and perhaps weeks. If you are an experienced developer, there is still a lot that you may have not come across yet and this book will certainly have some great information for you.

I've never purchased anything by Sean or Campbell, but if this is any indication of their work, I'll definitely be buying whatever else they write.