Rating: 
Summary: Very Good Book
Review: The VB.NET has alot more to offer than prior versions of VB. This book takes u from an intermediate to a highly advanced level when embracing this new language. I have 3-4 books on VB.NET alone and this book completely blows them away. In this book Balena tells u the do's and don'ts practiced by expert programmers. Everything from writing classes with inheritence to accessing databases through ADO.NET. This is a must have reference for VB programmers who want to take their skills to a higher level. WARNING: This book assumes u understand basic VB programming and in fact assumes that most of the readers already have a VB 6.0 background. The bonus is that it comes with a companion CD with a VB 6.0 book also written by Balena.
Rating:
Summary: The most useful book for Visual Basic .NET to date
Review: I have used this book for two weeks. I have to say it is the best investment that I have made so far in a dozen of .NET books that I own.The .NET is so big that no single book can cover everything. There are more than a dozen books on the market that takes the approach of covering a language and selecting the most useful subjects from the .NET framework to make it a practical day-to-day use book. I would say that Balena had done the best job. I am a ten-year VB veteran. I have been working on an intensive VB.NET project for two weeks. Though I have not get a chance to read the book from cover to cover, I have been able to find information in this book every time I needed them. This book has exactly right level of detail that I needed. The recommendations and examples are excellent. It has been such a time-saver for me so that I have used it more than any other .NET book that I own. I highly recommend this book to all VB.NET practitioners as a reference. I have not yet found a C# book that covers the .NET framework in such a useful manner. I think MS Press should port this book to C#.
Rating: 
Summary: Well worth it
Review: Out of over half a dozen VB .NET books currently on my bookshelf, this is definitely the best of the lot. Overall, the majority of the explanations and code examples are clear and relatively concise. While it probably won't be the only reference you need, it's a great one to have on hand. I wouldn't, however, suggest this as the place to start if you are a beginning VB programmer. Begin with something a little more basic if you're just starting to learn.
Rating:
Summary: A convert preaches...
Review: I read the awesome reviews for this book here and browsed it in the store. I was initially disappointed by the continuous references to VB6, but after some hacking around in VB.NET I see the genius in this method. Other reviews have bashed the book as "not for beginners as advertised", when the author says the exact same thing in his foreward. This is no "dummies" book, but it is not for pros only either. Do not let the size of this book intimidate you. There are plenty of small examples that allow you to understand what he is doing without him whipping you with redundant terms or expressions. I do recommend some previous programming knowledge but you do not have to be an expert to understand his concepts. The book comes with a 60-day trial of VS.NET (on DVD) and the VB6 eBook. I wish I had bought it sooner...
Rating: 
Summary: Not Reccomended
Review: Consider buying this book only if you are an experienced VB 6 programmer. And then only consider it after you've searched for a better alternative. As a professional OO programmer new to VB, I've found this book poorly written and difficult to understand. Almost every reference to a VB .NET language construct is discussed in context with VB 6 -- even if there is absolutely no analogous feature in VB 6. This leads the author to try to compare .NET features to VB 6 features when there is a dubious, at best, link between the two. The writing is vague. For example, when describing the always-important collection framework, the author says this of the StringCollection class: "The StringCollection class is a low-overhead class that manages a small collection of strings in a very efficient way." Nowhere in the section does he explain more specifically than "manages strings" what the StringCollection class actually does. How does it manage them? Why would I want to manage them with that class rather than a Hashtable? The author frequently uses "object" when he means "class," and vice versa, leading me to believe he doesn't know the difference between the two. He frequently mentions performance considerations at the expense of good design considerations, violating Knuth's principle: "Premature optimization is the root of all evil." The code examples consistently display poor OO design. The class diagrams -- in the infrequent times the author actually uses them -- use a nonstandard notation, making them difficult to understand.
Rating: 
Summary: Don't buy this book thinking you're getting an e-book too!
Review: No doubt Francesco has written it well but even his previous book was massive and the e-book helped people who didn't want to weight lift while reading. The cover of the book says "Includes *an* e-book" but not *the* e-book. The e-book included, is for his previous book "Programming in Microsoft Visual Basic 6". Now why on earth would any one want to read about VB6 when they buy a book on VB.NET I ask you?! I haven't started the book yet but the con job on the book cover made me blow my top.
Rating:
Summary: Very Well Put Together
Review: This is my second reference book on VB.NET. The first one Visual Basic Programmer's Guide to the .NET Framework Class Library is a compliment to this awesome book. This book is very explicit and detailed in explaining VB.NET in that it expands on the docs rather than quoting them verbatim. Since Francesco is a long time VB'er, I didn't expect anything less. The chapter on Threading and Advanced Win32 Techniques alone are worth the price of the book.
Rating:
Summary: Simply the best
Review: I've read various books about dotnet, this is definitively the best. Complete, coincise, small useful samples.
Just lacks remoting, but more than 1600 pages makes this a heavyweight book.
A must for the serious VB.Net programmer
Rating:
Summary: if you must have one book on VB.Net, this is it!
Review: Sometimnes it amazes me how this author managed to know so much about VB.net in so short a time since the product was released. His style is stimulating; his coverage of the subject matter is superb, and the organization of the text is simply great.
If you must have one book on VB.net, make sure it is this one. For one, it will save you much money. You don't have to spend your hard-earned dollars on books that are little more than a rehash of the online documentation. Secondly (and more importantly), you will also save time, because you'll be able to delve right away into the meat of VB.net without wasting time on trivial issues.
Of course, this book does not cover everything there is to know about the .net platform. However, it gives you a very robust foundation in everything vb.net and the new .net platform. It is my firm belief that as long as you stay with the new platform, you will have cause to refer again and again to this book.
Mr. Balena happens to be one of those rare technical authors that know how to write.
The only little problem I had with the book was the CD-ROM that does not contain the electronic version of the book (it contains the VB 6 version). I contacted the author and he offered a convincing explanation of why that was left out. (Some buyers loaded the vb 6 version on their websites, for free download by anyone, causing huge losses to the publishers. So they decided to leave it out in the new edition).
Even then, I still heartily recommend this superb book.
Rating:
Summary: Misrepresented
Review: The book is great. However, the editorial review which was written about it is misrepresenting the book. The CD which comes with the book does NOT include THIS books's complete text. It includes the Programming with Visual Basic 6 book on the CD. However, the situation is recitified when you look further in the book, and realize it comes with a 60 day trail of Visual Studio .NET Professional.
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