Professional VB 2005 (Programmer to Programmer) (Paperback)

by Bill Evjen (Author), Billy Hollis (Author), Rockford Lhotka (Author), Tim McCarthy (Author), Rama Ramachandran (Author), Kent Sharkey (Author), Bill Sheldon (Author) "New technologies force change, nowhere more so than in computers and software..." (more)
Key Phrases: servicecontroller class, ect datatype, loan slicer, Private Sub, Windows Forms, Public Sub (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

• Visual Basic .NET has changed dramatically from its predecessor, and this book shows developers how to build traditional console applications, ASP.NET applications, XML Web Services, and more
• The top-notch author team shares their years of experience in VB programming and helps readers take their skills to new heights
• Addresses issues such as security, data access (ADO.NET), and the latest Visual Studio .NET IDE
• Explores Common Language Runtime, variables and data types, object syntax, inheritance and interfaces, Windows forms, error handling and debugging, XML, namespaces, and advanced features of the latest version of ASP.NET

From the Back Cover
Professional VB 2005

As Microsoft's most popular programming language in the world, Visual Basic allows applications to be written with dramatically less code. Programmers can simply drag and drop controls, such as buttons and dialog boxes, and then define their appearance and behavior. With VB 2005, this language has finally made the leap to becoming a true object-oriented language, and is now able to take advantage of everything the .NET Framework has to offer. This unparalleled author team combines their years of expert-level experience to provide you with the complete VB.NET developer resource. You'll be equipped with everything you need to know to take your abilities to the next level when writing robust, useful applications.

What you will learn from this book

• How to deal with the issues of security, data access, and the latest Visual Studio® 2005 IDE
• Working with namespaces, networking protocols, and generics
• How inheritance and interfaces can be used within Visual Basic®
• Definitions of objects, classes, instances, encapsulation, abstraction, and polymorphism

Who this book is for

This book is for experienced developers who have used Visual Basic and are looking to make the transition to VB 2005 and the .NET Framework.

Wrox Professional guides are planned and written by working programmers to meet the real-world needs of programmers, developers, and IT professionals. Focused and relevant, they address the issues technology professionals face every day. They provide examples, practical solutions, and expert education in new technologies, all designed to help programmers do a better job.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 1104 pages
• Publisher: Wrox (November 10, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0764575368
• ISBN-13: 978-0764575365
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7.4 x 2.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #134,275 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

46 of 50 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Not recommended, December 8, 2005

By	John F. Carroll (Denver, CO USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This publication has not been subject to technical editing, or if it has, the staff performing the edit were definitely unqualified. The book contains literally dozens of errors, most of which should have been caught before publication. In many cases the text refers to a figure the contents of which bear no relation to the text. As an experienced VB.NET developer I was able to resolve most of the amomalies but anyone attempting to use this book as a migration aid from VB6 to VB.NET would really struggle. When I emailed the publisher (WROX) they displayed a distinct lack of interest, suggesting I compile a list of errors and send it to them and they would, if they agreed, add them to the errata on their website.

29 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Very inconsistent - oversite/coordination of content is a problem, January 25, 2006

By	Kevin Ireland (Atlanta, GA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I assumed I would like this book a lot, as I've enjoyed books and articles by many of the authors. Perhaps part of the problem is too many authors - and no primary editor (or one with too many projects.)

Some of the sections are strong, but many key concepts are not mentioned at all. I'll focus on data access as an example.

I realize any book on VB quickly becomes huge, and this one comes with 1000+ pages. But that's 1,066 pages with no mention of TableAdapters, a key new data access object in .NET 2.0. Perhaps the author of the section believes that use of a DataAdapter is always a better choice; if so, TableAdapter weaknesses should be described so that readers are aware of them. Microsoft believes the object is so fundamental that it is the first topic described on MSDN - after "Getting Started with Data Access" and before "Connecting to Data in Visual Studio." I don't understand why this new object, which is used to fill datasets and datatables, is not mentioned in a section titled "ADO.NET 2.0 enhancements to the DataSet and DataTable".

All aspects of data access, a fundamental part of almost any application, are covered in 48 pages. Twenty of those pages comprise a section "Building a Data Access Component" that includes many errors. None of the errors reported to the publisher two months ago are yet included in the errata.

In a related area, I could find no mention of the new BindingSource class or BindingSource component, key new features to support Windows Forms data binding.

This may have been one of the first books released on VB 2005, but whatever your level of experience, it's certainly not the best.

6 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An awful lot of stuff in one book., December 10, 2005

By	John Matlock "Gunny" (Winnemucca, NV) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This book could probably be used by the beginning VB programmer if they are at least familar with the basic concepts of programming. But it is really intended for those who have used VB before. This book concentrates on the changes in VB 2005 with special regard for its integration as part of the .NET environment. The book uses Visual Studio 2005, the integrated development environment that makes the writing of VB programs much easier.

The big changes in VB 2005 and the .NET environment is that most tasks take far less code to implement. This combined with the leap to VB becoming an object-oriented language has extended its ability to be used to code more extensive enterprise applications.

Shipping as part of Visual Studio 2005 Microsoft includes ASP.NET which is also covered here as part of the use of VB in programming for web sites. Other web oriented subjects included here include an introduction to XML which is used with the web to facilitate machine to machine communications. This is changing the very concept of the web where the data the site displays to a user may come from other machines literally anywhere in the world.

At almost 1200 pages, there's a lot of material here. It's well written, and covers just about everything you'd want to know about VB. I found a few small errors, but no real problems.