Rating: 
Summary: Good book, Needs work.
Review: I bought this book after going through several others thinking that SAMS quality would be enough. The book seems to have been rushed. Lets look a Day 3, the code for the investment Calulator; When your working through it is in one order, and the final listing is in another, making it a pain to re-organize the code so the program will work (This continues through out the book). Finaly when I run the code, I end up with errors.
The last line in the code:Console.WriteLine("Your final balance would be: {0,c}, Result) Should be re-written to look like this: Console.WriteLine("Your final balance would be: "))
Console.WriteLine(Result) (Note: Im using the Final Build of VS.NET and this
book was written before there was even a beta release) I wont mention the other problems I ran into. Over all I gave this book 3 stars because I feel that it's a good resource, but
not really for beginners, and it needs alot of work before it can be really usefull. You should try out a few others and get your grips before taking this one on, or wait for the Second Edition.
Rating: 
Summary: Simply The Worst Book I Have Ever TRIED To Read
Review: I enrolled into an Advanced Visual Basic 6.0 Class at at local Community College and in the middle of the semister, the teacher and classmates all agreed to change our study to VB.NET. We all agreed to purchase and use "Teach Yourself Visual Basic.NET in 21 Days", by Duncan Mackenzie and Kent Sharkey. To our suprise, 80% of the book revolved around using VB.Net's Console. A large majority of the programing is done using the console. All of the students in the Class and the Teacher are VERY dissatisfied with the explanations and examples and the way the authors explained techniques in simple programing. If you are new to VB.NET or are looking for something that will help you understand the VB.NET framework this is not the book for you. If you do purchase this book, buy the biggest Reference Book you can.
Rating:
Summary: S ="NO " & "GOOD"
Review: I got to page 83 and trashed the book, did anyone proof this. This book would be a nightmare to anybody trying to learn programing, give yourself a break and pass on this one!
Rating:
Summary: Worst Programming Book Ever
Review: I learn mostly from books and have bought Sams Series stuff in the past and have been very satisfied - their learn C# and C++ although not brilliant are certainly worth the money. This book however is written by people who don't use or teach the basics of the .NET interface. There are almost no "visual" examples just bucket loads of unexplained code and syntax that doesn't even work in practice and the author hardly uses the visual interface at all, which is the whole point of a "visual language". This is the WORST book on this subject I have read to date and I've read and used 5 others. If you are a beginner, buy Prof Smiley's Learn to Program VB.NET, if you want a professional reference buy the best - Francesco Balena's "Programming MS Visual Basic.NET or if you want multiple worked examples buy Microsofts "Visual Basic .NET - Step by Step". I have all 3 and they are all very good value for what I state. This book should be banned and everyone should demand their money back, vast areas of the book deal with console input. If you want to input that way then you are seriously wasting your money using VB.NET as your programming language choice! Get real Sam's this book is a farce and I certainly could never have programmed in VB after 365 days with your book never mind 21.
Rating:
Summary: An Absolute NO!
Review: I understand why the people who wrote these other reviews were disappointed. But I don't think this book is useless. If you want a training manual for Visual Studio.NET, definitely go elsewhere. However, if you're like me, and you want to understand how the technologies came about, how they relate to each other, and how they fit into the grand scheme of things, don't write this book off too quickly. There are a lot of good narrative passages that have helped me over some basic humps. I totally agree that the code samples are weak... I'm only on day three and have found examples that just simply DON'T do what the book says they will... But I'm still going to read it for the narrative, and then get another, more training oriented book for learning the IDE's ins and outs.
Rating:
Summary: Everything in its right place...
Review: I understand why the people who wrote these other reviews were disappointed. But I don't think this book is useless. If you want a training manual for Visual Studio.NET, definitely go elsewhere. However, if you're like me, and you want to understand how the technologies came about, how they relate to each other, and how they fit into the grand scheme of things, don't write this book off too quickly. There are a lot of good narrative passages that have helped me over some basic humps. I totally agree that the code samples are weak... I'm only on day three and have found examples that just simply DON'T do what the book says they will... But I'm still going to read it for the narrative, and then get another, more training oriented book for learning the IDE's ins and outs.
Rating:
Summary: S ="NO " & "GOOD"
Review: If you're a VB6 programmer, then this book will be smooth reading, mostly. Although the authors state that individuals new to programming are their target audience, there is scant elementary conceptual material (and intro projects). There are also many leaps of faith. By that I mean that code listings in the early chapters may be aimed at introducing simple concepts, but include syntax that is covered in later chapters, and that may or may not be explained in the listing "analysis." In general, I think that, by the end of the book, most significant topics are covered adequately for an intro text. Projects are generally suitable for the material, and sometimes clever. (As usual, there are a few typos and ordinary errors, but anyone beyond the novice level will be able to spot them and run the code.) As of early March 2002, the code listings are available for download from the Sams website. WEAKNESSES: Some of the chapters seem out of sequence. Chapter 5, "Application Architecture in .Net," belongs in a different book. There are a few slips, like using the "Set" keyword for object assignment in one of the listings. Another problem, resulting from Microsoft's waffling in the betas, is that the discussion on array dimensions reflects the early beta version, in which the array dimension is the number of elements (instead of the upper bound), rather than the release version (in which the dimension is the upper bound). While the book is a good start, it is by no means comprehensive. (You'll need to go to "Teach Yourself MORE VB.Net in 21 Days.") I think the most glaring weaknesses are the shortage of hands-on code in the first seven chapters, and the emphasis on console applications to illustrate early concepts. While console apps are expedient for an experienced programmer, it leaves novices wondering if they're studying the right language. STRENGTHS: For a VB6 programmer moving to .Net, this is the first book I've seen that presents enough plain vanilla code to calm their .Net jitters. Most of the other texts, such as Dan Appleman's excellent book, "Moving to VB.Net" spend so much effort on the advanced features in .Net that an experienced programmer is led to believe that learning .Net is like having to learn Klingon syntax. Mackenzie and Sharkey show its kinder side. The last seven chapters are particularly well written. I should also add that this book seems better focused than its predecessor, "TY VB6 in 21 Days". CONCLUSION: A fairly decent intro for experienced VB6 programmers. A novice can get through this, but it may burn quite a few calories.
Rating:
Summary: A lot of good material, but rough for a novice.
Review: If you're a VB6 programmer, then this book will be smooth reading, mostly. Although the authors state that individuals new to programming are their target audience, there is scant elementary conceptual material (and intro projects). There are also many leaps of faith. By that I mean that code listings in the early chapters may be aimed at introducing simple concepts, but include syntax that is covered in later chapters, and that may or may not be explained in the listing "analysis." In general, I think that, by the end of the book, most significant topics are covered adequately for an intro text. Projects are generally suitable for the material, and sometimes clever. (As usual, there are a few typos and ordinary errors, but anyone beyond the novice level will be able to spot them and run the code.) As of early March 2002, the code listings are available for download from the Sams website. WEAKNESSES: Some of the chapters seem out of sequence. Chapter 5, "Application Architecture in .Net," belongs in a different book. There are a few slips, like using the "Set" keyword for object assignment in one of the listings. Another problem, resulting from Microsoft's waffling in the betas, is that the discussion on array dimensions reflects the early beta version, in which the array dimension is the number of elements (instead of the upper bound), rather than the release version (in which the dimension is the upper bound). While the book is a good start, it is by no means comprehensive. (You'll need to go to "Teach Yourself MORE VB.Net in 21 Days.") I think the most glaring weaknesses are the shortage of hands-on code in the first seven chapters, and the emphasis on console applications to illustrate early concepts. While console apps are expedient for an experienced programmer, it leaves novices wondering if they're studying the right language. STRENGTHS: For a VB6 programmer moving to .Net, this is the first book I've seen that presents enough plain vanilla code to calm their .Net jitters. Most of the other texts, such as Dan Appleman's excellent book, "Moving to VB.Net" spend so much effort on the advanced features in .Net that an experienced programmer is led to believe that learning .Net is like having to learn Klingon syntax. Mackenzie and Sharkey show its kinder side. The last seven chapters are particularly well written. I should also add that this book seems better focused than its predecessor, "TY VB6 in 21 Days". CONCLUSION: A fairly decent intro for experienced VB6 programmers. A novice can get through this, but it may burn quite a few calories.
Rating: 
Summary: good starting book
Review: ive read these reviews, and im not stupid, but im not exactly the smartest thing. The gripe about this book is the fact that the author gives code but does not explain where to put the code, that it because the author is just showing you what the code will look like. It's like lookin at a window display and realizing that thats just what it looks like, and not what it looks like in your house, i hope that helps, im a big fan of SAMS work, and i hope any beginner seriously buy this book
Rating:
Summary: Not good at all
Review: Just like the other reviewer noted, I got to day three and that's as far at it goes. The book lets you do a sample "hello world" program, and gives a small taste of using the IDE and then leaves you on your own with 600 more pages to go. The IDE example shows you how to make a button and a text box. You are not shown how to make them even somewhat functional however.
The book (seems) to be giving some examples. These examples are called code that the programmer would write. The book does not even explain where to write the code. I know that sounds impossible and you probably think that going back and re-reading the first 50 pages would give a clue...but it does not.
I am very happy to know that I'm not the only one who cannot go any further with this book because I felt like I was missing something. I now have a little faith in the reviewers at AMZN and will probably pick up one of the other VB.net books I find that is recommended.
I actually have some java programming experience and cannot use this book. Therefore I would expect it to be impossible for those who have absolutely no programming experience. I say that I'm happy to know that I'm not the only one who finds the book useless, but am very annoyed by the loss of the 40 bucks I paid for this truly useless book. I do not like to say this about an author's work, but the book is not good. We all seem to agree.
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