5 comments about Beginning ASP.NET Databases Using VB.NET.

1. This was my first book on .NET and I think it was a great tool to help me learn the basics of database programming. After building on the basic concepts it goes on into deeper knowledge and real world examples. This book was the only resource I used to not only get started but to continue using as my desktop reference. The book has lots of examples and it's very detailed on the explanations. The authors have a clear and concise style that does not overwhelm the reader with extremely complex details. I recommend this book if you are a beginer on ASP.NET and I also think it serves as a good refenrece.



2. I have enough programming books that if weighed would weigh as much as a car.

   I love this book.

   The best part is that I can read it and follow the examples without having to sit at my computer.

   The key word in the title is beginning. I have found it to be a great foundation book on its subject matter.

   The authors should get an atta boy for this one.




3. I've been reading some of the other reviews on this page, and I can't believe they are reading the same book. I have had problems running the code in several of these exercises, particularly with any code that has the DataGrid control. I've also noticed I'm not the only with this problem, since I have browsed the Wrox website forums and found others who were having the same problems with the code. I even submitted code from Chapter 3, page 67 to Microsoft Support, after receiving nothing but a blank page when I ran it. Microsoft noticed that the code was MISSING a required clause! The exercise in question is the FIRST exercise in the book. If the first exercise you attempt fails even though you made no typos, it's frustrating. I can easily see a novice programmer getting discouraged and giving up. I'm an experienced ASP programmer and even I was getting fed up!

   I've been a big fan of other books by Wrox, but this one leaves a lot to be desired.




4. My guess is that the reviewers who gave this text five stars did not actually attempt to reproduce working versions of all the examples. The quality of this book is mixed, as is common for the multiple-author Wrox editions. Some of the chapters are exceptional, and deserve five stars, having clear and logical instruction as well as examples that work as described. Chapters 5 and 6 are examples of the best authoring, and it appears that the author with last name Ferracchiati has written some of the best chapters in the book. Other chapters are nightmarish excursions through incomplete and poorly explained code, with examples that don't work, and with files missing in the downloaded code. Examples of such chapters are 7, 9 and 10, with chapter 10 being so incredibly bad that it has permanently soured my outlook toward this text. To summarize - there is some useful information in the book, but don't pay more than a few dollars for it, and don't buy it if your own time is worth more than a few dollars per hour.



5. I've recently finished building all the examples in this book from scratch, using both EditPlus and VS.NET2K3 on my workstation, and storing and testing the apps on my Win2K3/SQL2K server. Once I got the security settings and connection strings figured out, I was able to get all the examples to run properly.
   
   This book can provide good additional practice for beginners to ASP.NET, after you've been through an introductory book, like Wrox's "Beginning ASP.NET with VB.NET 2003" (ISBN 0764557076), or it's C#.NET 2K3 equivalent, ISBN 0764557084.
   
   The book is OK as far as it goes, but you have to get all the way up to Chapter 11 before they show you an example of an object-oriented application that interacts with a relational database. And even then, they don't run through all the code in the book, they just give you the simplest files and tell you to download the rest of the example application from the web site.
   
   One big hole in the book is that it really should have a chapter on setting up and testing connections to various databases under various server scenarios. It's just a personal opinion, but I've always felt that it's important to run a test app that tests the database connection and read/update functions before you start to build anything else.
   
   Another drawback is that both the Beginning books, and this database book, have examples of ASP.NET server controls which don't quite render properly in any browser except Internet Explorer. Each of these books should have a section that discusses how to test in various browsers, and how to tweak the code so the pages will render properly in Firefox, Safari, etc.
   
   One big advantage of this particular book, however, is that they don't rely on any server controls that are available only in the Web Matrix design environment and only seem to run in a Web Matrix server. This is one big flaw in the beginning books.
   
   It's probably also important to note that no combination of the beginning books and/or this book will really get you quite up to the skill level you need to have in order to do real ASP.NET database application development. Once you're ready to start doing that, Wrox's "Professional ASP.NET 1.1" (ISBN 0764558900) is an excellent reference source. It's not a tutorial, but it's got pretty comprehensive coverage of most of the issues you'll need to know about. Go through one of the Beginning books, then do this book, then get the Pro book and you'll be ready to start developing.

No comments about Visual Basic 6: Complete Concepts and Techniques.

No comments about Developer's Guide to Reporting Services 2005.

5 comments about Coding Techniques for Microsoft Visual Basic .NET.

1. This is not a book for a novice programmer. It is geared towards the meeting the needs of professional system programmers. You won't find anything here on MDI, GDI+ or a host of other VB features. For example, the steps behind attaching buttons to code could have been illustrated much more explicitly. So if you are still coming to terms with the core of VB, this book could produce a rather serious challenge. Consequently, the text is not a substitute for other broader overviews of VB.Net.

   That being said, one of the exceptional strengths of the book is its efficient working through of the tool side of VB - which is huge. Whether you want to create a form, a class, a module, an ASP project, the author has the way picked out pretty cleanly. The CLR and Assembly sections are very written and really worth the effort. The section of ADO.NET is good, but tends to rehash a lot of Microsoft technical information. Inevitable probably. The ELIZA program design gives a good insight into using collections efficiently. However, files and streams are treated too abruptly for my liking.

   One of the other attractive aspects of the book is the lack of navel gazing about types and their cousins. Types are dealt with very practically (might not satisfy everyone).

   Unfortunately, the style is at times a bit too terse. For instance, I don't think this is a useful book from which to pick up OO skills. It covers class creation with a few very specific examples and then moves on. Theoretical digressions are noticeable by their absence. Again, a supplementary text will help here.

   Overall, however, I am very keen on this book. I learnt a lot more from it than I expected, and it is very well written. It is certainly a very valuable reference text.




2. One of the trivial but irritating problems with this book is that the author and the publisher seem to be unclear about who the target audience for this book is.The back of the book says that 'whether you are a beginner or a self taught programmer,a professional looking for a refresher n coding techniques ,or a programmer coming from another language ,this is the VB book for you.'Now in the second para of the book's introduction the author says that 'This book was written for visual basic programmers by a visual basic programmer'.

   Though the title of the book suggests that the book is meant for atleast intermediate programmer's in VB rather than a beginner the author at some places seem to be targeting a complete beginner.His explanation about why one should use a property procedure instead of a variable to prevent invalid values for classes seems to be absurd.Propety procedure are a very much part of VB6 and I am sure that no programmer moving on to .net from VB6 needs any explanation about the benfits of using property procedures over private variables.

   Overall I would still recommend this book simply becoz it's a good one.Some of the topics covered ar quite advanced and will cater to people who have finished reading books like Programming MS Visual basic.net by Francesco Balena.
   This book essentially should be your second book on Visual basic.net , the one you should read after say the Balena Book




3. The Book is good, give a good intro to vb.net but those interested more in the language should dig deeper Msdn, Blogs, Compiler Spec, etc.
   There is one thing though I disliked and hope it will be taken care of by Mspress, the problem is the Code Samples that obviously requires correction and shoulb be taken care of Asap.
   I am aware of the Kb article published on Microsoft site, still not enough.
   Other than that, great book and you can clearly sense from John's writing that he is a teacher and a good one as well.

   Hope this review would help one or more Vb Developer and that my message passed as well to the right Folks

   Yassine
   Regards




4. As a VB programmer who has struggled in the past with OOP, this book was written for me. It's one of the most readable technical books I've had, and explains the OOP approach without talking down to you or using contrived examples. Now I'm really fired up about switching to .NET!
   This book is an overview, not a reference, but the way it is written allows you to really think through how programs should be written in .NET



5. Le titre de ce livre ne convient tout simplement pas. En achetant ce livre, je m'attendais à ce que le contenu soit avancé. Habituellement, lorsque l'on est rendu au point d'apprendre des techniques de codage, on a pas besoin de savoir ce qu'un integer ou d'avoir un exemple de programmation orientée objet avec une classe de 1 méthode et 2 propriétés. Enfin bref, un autre livre sur lequel on peut dire qu'on apprends rien d'autre que des petits trucs simple et faciles à trouver sur Internet gratuitement. En plus, le livre coûte bien trops cher. Je ne pouvais pas mettre 0/5 alors je me suis contenté de mettre 1 étoile.

1 comments about Visual Basic for Dummies Quick Reference.

1. Sometimes you just need a quick glance at a list of properties, constants, function names, etc. without having to shuffle through over 1000 pages of material to find it. This book does that. It isn't meant to be all things to all people and will disappoint those who bring unrealistic expectations to something with the words "Quick Reference" in the title. A sensible spiral binding lets you lay it open and keep it handy while going about your business. Chances are pretty good that a quick read-through will be a source of picking up a few good tips you weren't aware of.

5 comments about Visual Basic® for Applications 5 Bible.

1. This book provides a lot of digression on topics that might be interesting to a reader. Things like what might motivate Microsoft's decisions, historical figures and occurrences, the philisophical issues behind some software design. Personally I enjoyed these diversions, but they are not germane to learning VBA. From the learning standpoint, the author does not provide an approach that builds up step by step, as texts do. He believes in the immersion approach, dumping the reader in the deep end and providing enough help that you don't drown. However, only gradually do you grasp the situation and begin to piece it together. I'd say that this book will accomplish its purpose and contains a lot of pertenant info, but it does require patience, and a willingness to let the author ramble in the hopes that he is going somewhere.



2. This books is very vague and is not meant for someone who has experience in applications development. There is no index on VBA commands. Some of the commands that you find do a good job of defining the options. The more advanced commands don't. The examples are not useful. We are trying to create a simple VBA module to control navigation through Power Point. The example the book provides is automatic generation of a Power Point presentation. I have done hundreds of presentations and have never had a need to automatically generate one.



3. I gave the book a lower score than it deserves because it tries to be a "bible" for both begineers and experienced users. The sophisticated stuff is great and worth a read. I suspect this mess is the editor's fault and not the author, since he clearly knows how to write. If you have gotten past the begineers level, try it.



4. Mr. Scott waxes philosophical and this is not the medium for it! There should be an IDG book for dummies like myself just to explain his incomprehensible VBA syntax examples. Even the English language syntax takes a direct hit. Zero stars is unfortunately not an option.



5. This book is obviously written by someone who can write well and has a master of the language. Trouble is, he seems to make quite an effort to show the reader. Throughout the book, topics that could be explained in a few straightforward paragraphs get mangled in 5 or more paragraphs, sometimes taking pages to explain. Hey, I love to read. But a technical book should get to the point and explain things clearly. The author loves to take the reader down "the side streets" -- offering anecdotal explanations of the "whys." But to me, that just doesn't seem appropriate in the middle of explaining an important topic. At least put the anecdotal stuff in a side bar and label it as such. I needed a book that gave me good solid information on VBA, and trying to get that out of this book takes WAY too long. I am sure there are better books out there for learning VBA. Personally, I learned most of my VBA from the Wrox Access97 VBA book. And I have the O'Reilly VB & VBA In a Nutshell. I reference that book almost daily. I highly recommend both the O'Reilly book and the Wrox book (even though the Wrox book is geared toward Access). Don't believe the "Reader Level: Beginning to Advanced" on the back of Visual Basic for Applications 5 Bible. It's really not either. This book will most likely confuse beginners (see the explanation of the difference between macros and code modules in Ch.1) and frustrate more advanced users of VB/VBA (see the long-winded discussion of VBA and COM in Ch. 9).

5 comments about Programming In Visual Basic Version 5.0.

1. This book was recommended by our instructor for our Visual Basic Bus92 class at San Jose State University. Almost every student in the class (over 50), including myself felt that the book was of little help for learning VB. Many of the students went to the local computer store for a better VB book. It gave some good hints on what to watch out for, but nothing to brag about. I recommend "Using VB 6" by QUE publishing.



2. I have, so far, found this book fairly easy to use as a beginner. The colour is good and the problems and examples are testing and easy to follow. I can now feel confident to start designing my own programs for work and home. Do not overlook. I haven't found any better so far !!



3. There are lots of books out there that are just written like references or Help books. That's not the way to learn programming. Programming books should be written like math books, with progressive exercises you can do with test data to make sure you're getting the right answers. This book is one of the minority of books written that way.

   BTW, "A reader from denver, colorado; AWFUL", you're just wrong. I have gone through this entire book from front to back. I did all the Hands-On Examples and nearly all the Exercises and Case Study problems, all entirely on my own at home, and they all ran just fine for me. And no, I'm not an experienced programmer. In fact, I'm a Sales Rep.

   It's true that the book has typos and just skims the surface of some important topics like database programming, graphics, ActiveX, OLE and DLLs. It's also true that it leaves out a few things that are really good to know, like the directory box. But this just supposed to be an introduction to the fundamentals. To really be a VB progammer, you need to study a lot more than just this, including SQL, OCX, etc.

   If you read each chapter really carefully, you should have no trouble whatever doing the Hands-On examples on your own without checking the code at all. If you can get through this book, you will be ready for an intermediate course.

   I'd be interested in anybody's recommendations for books that are written like this one, i.e., like a math textbook (IMHO, the way ALL computer programming books should be written!)




4. As a beginner to Visual Basic, I thought that the book was pretty good. I think it covers most of the basics and does a fairly decent job of laying out the information needed to move on to more advanced features. If you are a quick learner, this book will go fast, and you will soon need more advanced materials. Having said that, I think the book is a bit pricey for the user who has some sort of an idea concerning programing, otherwise, it is worth the money.



5. Although I have some experience in the computer field (I am an IS student), this was the very first book I've ever studied Visual Basic from. I must say that it explains a broad variety of topics in a very easy-to-comprehend fashion. I was only somewhat disappointed that OLE and ActiveX were barely covered.

5 comments about Visual Basic .NET Class Design Handbook: Coding Effective Classes.

1. As an experienced developer, I thought this book was not bad. I was looking for a book to strengthen up my class building skillset, but most of this material is just a presentation of fundamentals that I already know. Unfortunately, this book failed to clarify on topics where I lack a strong understanding because they don't really go very deep. Writing is repetitive and sometimes hard to decipher.



2. Silly, naive me. I purchased a book with the title "Visual Basic .NET Class Design Handbook" in order to learn more about effective class design, and particularly the expectations of previous Wrox books having wonderful practical examples. But you know you've made a mistake when you receive your book and on page 2 read "This isn't a book about object-oriented analysis and design." It seems as though someone asked the authors "What time is it?" and they wrote a book on how to build a watch and the space/time continuum. I found the single chapter devoted to classes in Sybex's Visual Basic .NET Programming far more valuable than this book. Perhaps it's one of the cases where the title just does not match the intended content -- I'm willing to give the benefit of the doubt and give two stars instead of one. But I'd also hesitate to ask the authors for directions to the restroom, afraid that I would receive a lecture on the digestive process and the history of plumbing.



3. Ever been looking for a book but you were not sure what you were looking for because you were not sure what you don't know.
   
   That was me before I finally found it. I am a self taught VB programmer who was REALLY struggling with the OOP concepts. Before buying this book I had purchased 4 or 5 other VB.NET books that didn't cut the mustard at getting me over the OOP hump. And then I found this book.
   
   This book takes nothing for granted and explains so much in such great detail. What is garbage collection? What happens when you call a Reference Type by Value? By Reference? What is constructor chaining? What is an interface? What is inheritance? (And on and on it goes knocking out one question as a time to the tune of HUNDREDS of questions. I have now red this book four times. (Scanned twice, read once, and now am doing a slow thorough read.) It is TRUE that this book is NOT on Object Modeling/Object Oriented Design (now if I could just get my brain wrapped around that). But that is not a great starting point for learning .NET. What I didn't know that I needed to know was that the CLASS is at the heart of OOP fundamentals. Now I would not say I am an expert, but I can pretty accurately conceptualize OOP principles and how .NET works.
   
   If you are in a similar situation, this book is THE book for you.
   
   SBS



4. This book is pretty good. It could use a little more 'big picture' information. It does a very good job of differentiating protected, sealed, shared... class modifiers and how they work on a technical level, but not necisarially why you would do it.
   
   I think the book has a good bit of value for somebody who is going to architect a small system or build classes. I think this book combined with the sam's "the object oriented thought process" book are a very good match to introduce intelligent people to modern class construction and use. The book really isn't for slow learners. If you need 'for dummies' books, stay away from this one. If you have a reasonable IQ, then its a very concise lesson without much garbage.



5. I was kinda disappointed with this book. I relied on the hight reviews that's why I bought it, thinking I'll be learning more on how to design good classes from problem analysis, but didn't get what I was hoping for. The topics discussed in the book can be found in most of VB.net books around, and this book emphasized that it is not an object-oriented type of learning material, so for those beginner OOP programmers like me searching for a good book from problem analysis to class design, look anywhere else and please recommend if you found one.

5 comments about Professional VB.NET, 2nd Edition.

1. The .Net platform has undoubtedly revolutionized the world of software development, whether web based or traditional windows. Professional VB.Net like other WROX books (pardon my bias) does complete justice to the subject matter, explaining every nuance and subtlety with the typical lucidness that WROX books have been come to be known for. I used this book to pass the 70-305 certification exam. Great book for learning the language and the .Net platform.



2. Good book if you want to find how to apply VB.NET in different areas. BUT if you want to know VB.NET itself, don't waste your time, it should be the last book in your list.



3. This is not a book for beginners who are new to VB world. This book explains the differences (improvements) from VB6.0 to VB.NET. In addition, it has a few chapters that explain the Object Oriented concept in a well-organized fashion. This book is a good investment for anyone who is looking to move into the VB.NET world.



4. I`m really happy that I've purchased this book.
   Actualy I`m a self-learned VB 6 programmer; after having finished about how to program VB.NET, I wanted to learn more about the infrastructure of the .Net framework & also how to use professional tricks to increase the performance of my applincations.
   I found this book helpful on the way to achieve the above goals.
   You can consider it as a MUST HAVE BOOK for a professional VB developer.



5. This book has disappointed me one too many times so I'm going to finally write the review I've been wanting to. I keep trying to use this book and it keeps leaving me short. Sometimes in the examples the author tells you to do something obscure but then he doesn't tell you how to do it. The coverage lacks depth and detail.
   
   I am an experienced VB programmer but I got this book to help me convert to .Net. It has been a big disappointment. Some of the topics I needed help with were not covered. Most of the ones that were covered were sketchy.
   
   Fortunately, I picked up a Special Edition of "Using Visual Basic .Net" from Que which typically saves my bacon.

5 comments about Programming Microsoft Windows with Microsoft Visual Basic .NET (Core Reference) (Pro-Developer).

1. Charles Petzold has been writing Windows programming books since the year one. He knows his subject and how to get it across to his readers. This is not intended to be another in an already long series of books on VB data base programming for the enterprise. Rather it is a clear exposition of VB.NET Windows programming with an emphasis on the inner workings of Windows. It will prepare its readers to create their own structures from the building blocks offered by the .NET Framework. It has excellent sections which explain how Windows paints and draws objects and others on how to use the built-in graphics functionality of Windows in your own projects. It is probably not for rank beginners. A useful complement, in a different style, is Francesco Balena's "Programming Microsoft Visual Basic .NET".



2. This is the best book I have ever had. I have used Sams Reach Yourself Visual Basic.Net and Sams Teach yourself more Visual Basic.Net. But, this helped me aply my programing to windows better and I was able to have more fun



3. Want to code bit mapped circles and arcs? Want to re-invent "pong?" This is your book. Want to code business aplications - this book is a waste. There is more attention paid by the author to "Fun With Fonts" than to things that have been significantly improved in .NET like TreeView.
   I get the sense Petzold wrote the original content for this book back in the 80's and has re-cycled it one time too many.
   The title of the book inferred a little bit of help in using VB.NET to tap into the new Window's .NET Framework. It does - but it sticks to the things you could do in the Windows API several years ago. IMHO, in 2004 we are way beyond lines, curves, brushes, pens, images and bitmaps.
   This is another author going through the motions and updating old content.



4. Petzold makes it clear that programming means coding, not dragging and dropping. And that should make it obvious why Wanna-Be-Coders won't like this one very much. With this reader, you actually learn programming at a very high and pure level, which makes it one of the best books on coding money can buy.
   
   I don't have much patience for cry babies who claim the book is recycled crap - they don't have the slightest idea what they're talking about. Now, if the real McCoy is too tough for you, why don't you stay with VB6 or switch to Delphi? Better yet, give up on programming altogether and do something easier - like knitting.



5. CAVEAT: This is not a book for Visual Studio spoon-fed types. Guess what? there are many other IDEs besides VS out there. (IDE - Integrated Development Environment). So if you're addicted to using VS and you're opposed to some mental gymnastics, this is probably not the book for you.
   I like and use VS but Petzold's IDE neutral approach forced me to figure out many things about VS and Windows that I didn't know before. And to delineate between them.
   Visual Studio issue aside, Petzold's writing style and code examples are so very well thought out and insightful. The focus is on applying graphics functions to Windows forms. This is a way to explore "under the hood" of windows programming without delving into DB, data IO and user interface issues. Since I have an interest in graphics programming anyway, I was totally pleased with the topic emphasis.
   Excellent discussion of and application of Object Oriented Design. Petzold is just plain fun to read. Yes, the previous statement reveals that I am a total programming geek.
   If you read both C# and VB, choose the VB version. Petzold says in the forward that he refined the conceptual content as he was rewriting the original C# book for VB.NET.