Rating: 
Summary: Why Buy or Don't Buy
Review: The main reason I bought this book is because I am familiar with Francesco Balena's writings and I admire his work. On important thing to note is that this is not a book to read, this is a reference book. If you want reasons to buy this book, here are the reasons:
- You will not appreciate this book if you did not start developing in .net and stumbled upon tasks that you did not know how to do.
- It is clear and concise and you will not need to go through the terrible MSDN documentation (sometimes of course MSDN is unavoidable)
-almost everything you need is in this book. You will find at least one simple example of each topic that will aid you to understand the basic idea. Some topics are covered more extensively than others. If you want reasons not to buy this book, here are the reasons:
- XML, ASP .NET, and ASP data binding controls are not covered extensively here. If this is what you are looking for, try other books.
- The book dwells too much into Win32 application and as a web developer this is not useful for me (around 318 pages). Even ADO.NET is covered with relation to Win32 Application not web forms
- This is something I saw in almost all books I read about .net.
Class libraries that has no examples in the MSDN is almost absent from .Net books. It would be nice to have a book that talks about these forgotten libraries. In general, I did not regret buying this book since it proved to be a simple and easy way to "How to" do things in .Net
Rating: 
Summary: Probably the best
Review: This is perhaps the best book on VB.Net you can find. Clear and concise, it cover everything you need to master VB.Net. I found a lot of things that are only coverd in this book
Rating:
Summary: What's more?
Review: Terrific book!
You can find everything you need in the 99.9% of your developer career.
In only one book there're 3 books inside: VB NET, ADO NET, ASP NET (and Web Services and SQL too!).
Certainly, is not for beginners, but if you have just some knowledge on the subjects, it's not so difficult keep on reading through the big estension of the book.
Rating:
Summary: Good Deal
Review: If your going to Fairleigh Dickinson University and your taking up ASP Developer will need this book
Rating:
Summary: Solid and comprehensive.
Review: It's doesn't cover everything, and it's not perfect, but I can't think of any introductory book for VB .NET or C# (and I've looked at a lot) that cover anywhere near the same amount of material. The wealth of code examples of tables is also nice to see. All around, the best way to start .NET programming.
Rating:
Summary: A great resource but be careful
Review: This is a large and heavy book that could maim if not properly handled. But you will not outgrow it very quickly like the other VB .Net books on the market. You'll come back to it time and time again to look up information. However, all this information is scattered about like pieces in a jigsaw puzzle. If you know what should go into the solution to your problem, you'll be able to find most of the information somewhere. But if you don't, you'll still be scratching your head for a long time. VB .NET is an application framework, a proprietary one at that. So be forewarned about the time and money that you'll have to invest to become knowledgeable about it. Remember MFC? Cobol and Fortran are still around more than 50 years later... Never mind. Remember VB6? The changes in VB .NET from VB6 vary from the frustrating to hours of extra work. For example, the combo box has lost its listindex property. It is there but under a different guise. This book doesn't go into these traps or has too much to say about controls such as the combo box. Although it is more powerful, VB .NET has lost quite a bit of the "R" in RAD out of the box compared to VB6.
For example, there is no control in VB .NET to do forms data binding. This was a boon to VB6 programmers. If you didn't know about VB6, you may not even think about forms data binding unless you get to p. 829 of the book. Not only that, now you'll have to worry about all the ugly details to develop the same data binding functionality or spend money looking for third party solutions. This book does tell you how to develop data binding using an obscure class called BindingManagerBase. Check this out in other books. You'll have a hard time finding it elsewhere. What's on my wishlist is that the author would follow up with another book that is less granular in the way the information is presented and would present material organized according to model layers. All programming tasks can be viewed as having discrete layers such as presentation, I/O, database, business logic, etc. For example, wouldn't be nice to have a book that discusses best practices and shows you different ways to read/write different
types of files such as text, XML, graphics, etc. There is no such book on the market today. This book will give you something to stand on. But a more practical reference is sorely needed for anyone trying to get over the hump to become a RAD programmer with VB .NET.
Rating:
Summary: Must have reference for all VB.NET developers!
Review: I'm on a team with 7 developers, all new to VB.NET, and some new to VB. I had bought this book several months ago, and had it on my bookshelf for a while as we were designing our current project. As we started getting into the code, I found myself getting interupted by people asking to borrow the book, or for my thoughts on a given chapter. Within a matter of days, every developer had a copy of his own, resting on his desk, most times open or sitting on his lap, helping through the challenge of the day. This book is a must have. It covers almost every topic you will encounter, from Windows Forms to ASP.NET. While it lacks the detail that some more specialized books have, it covers all topics with enough detail to get you started down the right path. Happy Coding!!
Rating:
Summary: Really good, but could've been better
Review: Let me start by saying that this is a very good book. It's been invaluable to me in getting up-to-speed on VB .NET. It's pretty much soup-to-nuts coverage of the language and its use within the .NET framwork. That said, the book also has its shortcomings which, IMHO, keep it a few notches below the quality of Petzold. The title of the book is Programming Microsoft Visual Basic .NET, but for all the hundreds of references to VB6, the book reads more like Upgrading Microsoft Visual Basic 6.0 to Microsoft Visual Basic .NET, which is actually a different book. On top of that, the book is so peppered with arcane minutiae that it could have been 100 pages shorter, and much better, if Francesco had left out all that useless information. I found all of this extraneous information distracting.
Rating:
Summary: The best and most definitive book on the .NET Framework!
Review: I have read through a large number of books on the .NET Framework, most of them using C# rather than VB.NET. Although I prefer to program in C# rather than VB.NET, this book is absolutely the BEST book on the .NET Framework. Francesco Balena's treatment of the .NET Framework is extremely thorough and comprehensive. In addition, I love Francesco Balena's prose and writing style. He writes and explains the concepts so clearly. He also supplies lots of excellent coding examples to illustrate his points. If you are looking for a definitive and comprehensive explanation of the .NET Framework, with plenty of coding examples, look no further. This is THE book. Although I program in C#, this is my GO-TO book when I need a thorough explanation from the ground up on most subjects within the .NET Framework. Much better than any C# book I have read. I have only 2 criticisms of this book. 1. Francesco Balena, when are you going to re-write this book in C#? 2. This is one heavy weight volume with almost 1600 pages. Due to a combination of its huge size, and it heavy use in my library as I keep referring to it for answers, the binding is starting to fall apart. The publisher should consider either heavier binding or putting it into 2 volumes. Francesco Balena, thank you for such clear and outstanding explanations of the .NET Framework! Tony Lin
Fremont, CA
Rating:
Summary: Good Book
Review: If you want a thorough understanding of Visual Studio.Net using VB.Net than this is the book for you. I have learned a lot in just three short chapters. I can't wait to finish tearing through this book. Although big, Francesco delivers. A must have for serious developers.
| 
