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Rating: Summary: Decent for a slim book Review: I bought this book for a VB online class I was taking. At the time I needed something to look up commands for when I was on the raod and didn't have Internet access and I didn't want to carry many heavy computer books in my bag.
While working on the projects for class there were some commands that I couldn't find when searching the MSDN discs that the school sent me but luckally I was able to find them in the book which allowed me to finish the project.
While the book is not cover everything and the organization could really use a lot of work since I had to search page to page to find what I was looking for it was the good enough for what I needed it for.
Rating: Summary: difficult to use and extremely poorly organized Review: I've found the O'Reilly C# Language Pocket Reference extremely useful and sensibly organized. Unfortunately, this pocket reference for the other main .NET language is just the opposite. To my mind, a poorly organized pocket reference is a fatal flaw. For example, the table of contents is 2 and 3/4 pages long. Almost two of those pages describes pages 1-17 in the book (covering constants and enumerations in detail), while the other 3/4 of a contents page describes, with no detail, the remaining 125 pages. With no index as well, it is almost impossible to find what you are looking for except by looking page-by-page. Want to find, say, the syntax of a select statement? Then you have to wade through a hundred-odd pages of non-alphabetically listed function descriptions.
Rating: Summary: Overcomplicating a simple language; doesn't include objects. Review: There were many reasons why I was disappointed by this book, but I did manage to get some use out of it. First of all, I can't believe I payed 24 dollars for it at a B&M store, especially considering what it's going for here. It's a small book, a pocket reference. My first beef, as I walked out of the store with my wallet a little lighter, was that it has absolutely nothing about objects. If you're looking for help with objects and their properties, do not buy this book. If you're looking for a definitive reference of the structure of the language, ie. constants, data types, math, interaction with files, and help with the registry, go for it. It's worth it for amazon's price. Also, one distinct note. This book, as with many other O'reilly books, is not FOR DUMMIES. The wording is obtusely complicated and will have you (or at least me) re-reading passages. In my opinion, that is a ridiculous oversight, because at heart, VB is a simple language, and overcomplicating it is a bit of a waste.
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