Rating: 
Summary: Doesn't cover every single thing about VB.NET
Review: This introductory text doesn't cover every single thing there is to know about VB.NET and the .NET Framework -- and that is where its strength is. You can go out and buy one of the more comprehensive books (for example: Programming Microsoft Visual Basic .NET (Core Reference) by Francesco Balena). While such a book would be very important to an established VB.NET developer, other than as supplementary reference, these comprehensive books are of limited use to someone who does not know the language yet and wants to learn it. If, on the other hand, you are looking to teach yourself VB.NET and do not have the time or the cash to take a formal class, then the Murach book is the one for you -- whether you are new to programming or you are someone who is familiar with a legacy language like C, Perl or VB6. This book doesn't ask you to bite off more than you can chew. Once you complete the material in this book you will have a very strong foundation for learning the more advanced topics of VB.NET. The author put a great deal of thought into the organization of this book. She selected the right topics, put them in the right order, and explained each topic well (with good examples). Another strength is the availability of programming exercises. It's not enough to just follow along with the code in a book (especially if you are beginner). You need to write some original code on your own. Hands-on practice is the only way to really learn and this book provides plenty of it. This book is very thoughtful and well laid out. Rather than use a lot of color and razzle-dazzle (which both distracts attention from the content as well as adds to the cost of other books), the author gets right to the point with the subjects you need to learn to obtain the minimum knowledge to start coding in VB.NET at a professional (that is, salaried) level. Feel free to buy additional books for reference purposes. But if you want to LEARN VB.NET on your own, this book provides sufficiently comprehensive introduction. It's the best introductory tutorial for the price.
Rating: 
Summary: Good but with less content than the page size suggests
Review: This is a good book for learning aspects of VB.NET but it is not in the same class pedagogically as several others (particularly Schneider and Burrows). The strengths of the book are that the environment is explained fairly exhaustively and every second page has a piece of code illustrating something or other. The downside of the book is that there really isn't enough by way of projects and exercises for the average CS student. My main concern is that you could read this book, play around with the code (which has to be downloaded - no CD) and delude yourself into thinking you had now learnt VB. There just isn't enough in the book for my money to recommend it as a good comprehensive student text. Other books give more bang for your money. For its price, one could expect colour screen shots and colour coding, but that isn't there. In addition the layout as you move through the book is irritating (my opinion). For instance, a page introducing a construct lays out its stall in text (leaving on average the bottom third blank). The opposite page then has the chunk of code (often you need to look up the downloaded files to get the full context)in a box, underneath which is a bullet point synopsis of the opposite page. Too repetitive and formulaic for my liking. If you want a very gentle introduction to VB then this may suit you well. However, if you want a sound foundation in programming then there are other books to consider. There is only so much simplification you can bring to any discipline, and avoid cutting out its heart.
Rating:
Summary: Provides a strong foundation
Review: Where many books explain the subject and provide a few trivial coding examples, this book provides plenty projects and exercises. These are NOT just the step-by-step kind, where you just follow along with the book and type in what is printed in the book. The author gives you the basic specs and it is up to you to come up with the completed solution. Some of the exercises have suggested solutions. For those that do not, I found through experience that an email to the author will result in some assistance. How can you beat that!! In addition, there are additional exercises that can be downloaded from the Murach website. Before you dive into the deeper details of .NET in general and VB.NET specifically, you need to develop a strong foundation upon which to build those skills. This book will give you the foundation upon which you can continue to build those skills once you have mastered the fundamentals convered by this book. I recommend this book as a starter before you move onto the more detailed and more specialized tutorials.
Rating:
Summary: Great Book!
Review: Wow! What a great book. Thanks Anne for writing it. I have been dabbling around windows and OOP for the last few year thinking it was needlessly complicated. Now, I finally get it. Visual Studio .net really gives necessary productivity gains to make the programming productive and worthwhile. I finally get OOP concepts like "protected members". Great book. Note: The sections on ASP.NET and ADO.NET are introductory -- Anne Price and Doug Lowe cover them in detail in seperate Murach books.
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