Rating: 
Summary: Bad book, author unclear on Visual Basic .NET
Review: This book follows the model and format of his previous VB 6 book - a bad mistake in my opinion. This means he cares way too much about Windows forms stuff and also only gets to objects later on in the book. Windows forms are the smallest part of.NET and it is the full object orientation of VB .NET that you need to master as well as cool things like multithreading, web services and ADO.NET which are skimped in my opinion. An example of the kind of problem that made me give this book such a low rating is the author makes some fundamental mistakes in his explanations of how object oriented programming works. For example, in his discussion of the pass by value/pass by reference distinction he says arrays and other objects are passed by reference even if you use pass by value. This is WRONG and why it is wrong is explained clearly in the excellent books of Roman, Cornell or Jesse Liberty all of which I recommended previously. (Jesse's great book is on C# but it is the same in VB NET as in C#. The idea is that when you pass objects by value you can change things like array entries but this doesn't mean they are passed by reference since you can't swap two arrays that are passed by value as Liberty pointed out)
Rating: 
Summary: Absolutely Superb! Get this book!
Review: This book has nearly all you need to learn the VB .NET language and the Visual Studio .NET IDE. The author is very clear in his explanations and this is your best bet if you're really serious about learning VB .NET. It's excellent for beginners (like me, although I'm not a beginner anymore after reading this book) and for those who need to have the changes from VB6 to VB .NET crearly explained. What else can I say?... Pretty satisfied!
Rating:
Summary: Comprehensive for Desktop Programming
Review: This is a great text for learning VB.NET on the desktop. I really liked his book on VB6 and his VB.NET is even better. He presents all major and new object-oriented code examples to help convert my old VB6 code to NET specs. The only MINOR weakness is the limited coverage on Web-based programming (this should be another book anyway). For new people getting started with VB.NET you are going to love this book.
Rating: 
Summary: The good, the bad, and the beautiful
Review: This is an excellent book for beginners or intermediate programmers.
Good points:
This book explains subjects that most other books on VB .Net ignore. If you are considering buying any other book on the dot net environment, look in its index and see if it covers FileStream, ArrayList, SortedList. Most do not cover these, but Petroutsos's book does and they really simplify life. They add to the power of your programs and cut down on the amount of work you have to do. This book has a lot of other similar features of the environment that other books skip. Bad points:
I am appalled by the number of errors in the programming examples and descriptions. Be aware that when he writes "to the right" he often means "to the left" and vice-versa. Be aware that he likes to declare variables that do absolutely nothing in his code segments: they are declared, they use up memory, and the program never refers to them after they are declared. Be aware that the code given in the book does not always conform to the code sample in the CD that accompanies the book.
There iss an errata sheet for the text on the Sybex web, but I have never succeeded in getting them to correct errors I point out to them. Conclusions:
You can overcome the bad points above so they are minor speed bumps, however annoying. What you cannot do is find a better text for learning the basics of .Net and also learn to use the tools that make you never want to go back to VB Version 6..
Rating:
Summary: Brent
Review: This is definatly a good beginners book for visual basic .net. You don't need to know anything about programming at all to get started. It covers all the commonly used controls and objects. As far as the word "Mastering" in the title, I'm not so sure. It gives you just enough to get by, then you need something else to get further.. For that I recommend Troelsen's Visual Basic .NET an advanced guide. For beginning and intermediate VB programmers this is a GREAT book, everyone else take the other.
Rating:
Summary: Brent
Review: This is definatly a good beginners book for visual basic .net. You don't need to know anything about programming at all to get started. It covers all the commonly used controls and objects. As far as the word "Mastering" in the title, I'm not so sure. It gives you just enough to get by, then you need something else to get further.. For that I recommend Troelsen's Visual Basic .NET an advanced guide. For beginning and intermediate VB programmers this is a GREAT book, everyone else take the other.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent book. as an introduction to Visual Basic.Net
Review: This is really an excellent book if you want a very good introduction to the basics of Visual Basic.Net. The book is good read, good examples, very comprehensive. If you are want to start with Visual BAsic.Net, GET THIS BOOK.
Rating:
Summary: Easy to understand. Great for beginners
Review: Unlike so many programming books this one is relatively easy to understand. Even if you don't have any programming experience. Unfortunately, examples contain some errors. Nevertheless, one of the best books for beginners.
Rating:
Summary: The legend is Back
Review: Well I am a seasoned VB family developer, I read his vb 6 version book, it was great and helped me a lot, then his vb6 database programming book was super, both contained explanation for real world senarios. His vb.net version is on the same lines, thick like vb6 book , contains theory and pratical examples, I like his way of explaining. It contians info for any level of programmer. I am also looking for his database vb.net programming book to hit our town stores. I buy Evangelos books without evaluating them. Good coverage.
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