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Rating: 
Summary: Hard to follow
Review: As a beginning student taking visual basic.net I found this book to be confusing at times. The coding examples given do not build on one another, but they pertain to the same subject at hand and so it seems they should, but if you try to type in what they give you for an example your code will not work, and you will be forced to re-read the chapter to find out what they left out in the example just so that you can see what their poorly explained sample code is supposed to do. Sometimes they do build on one another but that is not pointed out. Examples are given as several small, sporadic chunks of code instead of one complete peice that you could go though to trace the sequence of events (very important to learning it) There are very few screenshots in each chapter. Code examples given are poorly explained. At times, code examples are given that throw in new, unfamiliar characters or commands that are not explained for several pages later. So you are sitting there thinking that you missed something and you are forced to reread the chapter again.
These chapters take 3 or 4 hours to show you how to do something that a teacher could show you in 20 minutes.
Rating: 
Summary: Not good for online classes
Review: I am currently an online student at a local university. I attempted a class using this book. Another reviewer put it beautifully, "the book doesn't explain how it got the code listed at the end of the chapter" and understanding how to get there could prove to be a long night! While I've never programmed before except playing with some basic programs as a kid, I felt confident I could pass the class with work and dedication. I spent more than twice as much time online than I would have taking a campus class and still didnt' "get" it. Because I've been able to achieve success in other subjects that aren't my strong suits, I feel that the blame must rest with the book and the lack of continuity in the exercises. In fact, I noticed that the class will be using a different book this fall. Wonder why?!If you've programmed before, then this book might be okay; if not---don't attempt to learn with this one.
Rating:
Summary: Not good for online classes
Review: I am currently an online student at a local university. I attempted a class using this book. Another reviewer put it beautifully, "the book doesn't explain how it got the code listed at the end of the chapter" and understanding how to get there could prove to be a long night! While I've never programmed before except playing with some basic programs as a kid, I felt confident I could pass the class with work and dedication. I spent more than twice as much time online than I would have taking a campus class and still didnt' "get" it. Because I've been able to achieve success in other subjects that aren't my strong suits, I feel that the blame must rest with the book and the lack of continuity in the exercises. In fact, I noticed that the class will be using a different book this fall. Wonder why?! If you've programmed before, then this book might be okay; if not---don't attempt to learn with this one.
Rating: 
Summary: Used in college course
Review: I'm taking a visual basic class at my local community college this semester and we're using this book. I really like it and it's laid out well and is particularly good for looking things up when you need a reference guide. There's a program at the end of each chapter (they give you the full source code along with the psuedocode and form design so that you can create it all yourself). There have been a few minor mistakes that we've found but otherwise the book is excellent for learning VB.
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Summary: This book was also used in a college course I had...
Review: This book is only good for getting your feet wet with VB.NET... it gives you lil intros into different aspects of .NET
I would recommend getting a different book, I just dont think its worth the money for the amount of information you get (not much)
Rating:
Summary: Not good for teaching yourself
Review: This textbook is lousy if you are using it to teach yourself. The book gives snippets of sample code, but it is difficult for the reader to start coding a project using these samples because they are too isolated and they do not build one upon the other to give a sense of continuity. At the end of each chapter a large amount of code is printed. This is the solution, but how the reader gets to that solution can be quite a problem. I doubt if the authors tested the manuscript on potential students, the sycophantic blurb on the back cover notwithstanding. I found a much better book with which to teach myself: "Visual Basic .NET Step by Step", 2nd edition, by Michael Halvorson, Microsoft Press. This book lives up to the "Step by Step" in its name. You cannot get lost following it.
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Summary: A Visual Tutorial for a Visual Language
Review: Visual Basic .Net programming (in fact, any Visual Studio programming) is a very visual process. As such, it requires a visual guide to learning the language and the development environment. This book is one such guide, and does its job as well as a book can. However, even that is not enough to make learning VB.Net painless. There are so many diagrams in the book that it ultimately ends up being long and tedious. But I don't fault the book, as it's the best I've ever seen for this type of subject. It's just that a book can't do justice for the language as well as a classroom. For self-study, I would recommend not a book but a CBT (computer-based training) course. Instead of making the student wade through pages and pages of screenshots, a CBT course animates the process of creating a program, and tests him or her at key points along the way. However, CBT courses aren't cheap. As a paper alternative, this is the only book I could recommend for the beginning Visual Basic student.
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