Rating: 
Summary: Definitely the best book to learn VB .NET so far
Review: Cornell has always been one of my favorite writers on programming topics and this book doesn't dissapoint. (Interestingly enough, Jesse Liberty my other favorite writer on programming, has written a great C# book.) There is no question in my mind that this book currently is by far the best place to learn VB .NET if you have any programming experience at all. Note however that Cornell's book isn't comprehensive and it doesn't cover nearly as many topics as Wrox's "Professional VB .NET." so you might want to get a copy of that book for now. But what Cornell covers he generally covers in a far better manner and in much more detail than the Wrox book. (As I said in a previous review I found the Wrox book too variable from chapter to chapter to be ideal.) In particular, Cornell's chapters on OOP (especially the Inheritance and Interface chapter) are among the best I have ever seen on these topics. This is also the first book on VB .NET that I have seen that really covers multi-threading in any depth and I was happy to see that the chapter on Windows Forms covers basic printing! (A pet peeve of mine...). However, the downside to Corenll's book is that the chapters on ADO .NET and ASP .NET are only brief surveys and you pretty much have to (but you should anyway) turn to the excellent books "Teach Yourself ASP .NET in 21 Days" (Payne, Sams) and "Database Programming with VB NET" (Thomsen, Apress) for more information on these topics.
Rating:
Summary: Comment on Walker - Cornell knows what he says
Review: I already very favorably reviewed this book already once but I can't resist commenting on Walker's disparaging comment about Cornell's teaching the GoTo. First off, what he says about the socially acceptable use of the GoTo is well known and was first pointed out by Donald Knuth (arguably the most famous computer thinker) in his paper "Structured programming with go to statements. Computing Surveys, 6(4):261--301, December 1974." He also explains that using Try/Catch is the better choice nowadays do I think Walker is way off base. By the way, let me now add that the best book to follow Cornell is Balena's book from Microsoft Press.
Rating: 
Summary: Good for a Beta Product
Review: I am a professional programmer who thinks that VB.NET is a great front end for server-side Java. (Java is still just too slow on the client.) Compared to Java, however, VB.NET is very new and very few books exist on the market. The final version of Visual Studio has only been out since February (2002). Nearly all of the VB.NET books on the market today are based on the .NET betas or were rushed to the market, or, in the case of this book, both. (This book was rushed even before the final version was out.) I like the format of the writing very much, but the more I dug into the text and the final version of Microsoft's documentation, the more and more errors I found in the book. The authors refer to certain Visual Studio generated variables as keywords and do a poor job of explaining OOP and threading. Fortunately, I am experienced enough with Java (another OOP language) and VB 6 to be able to figure these things out for myself. If I were a beginner, I would be scarred for life. Unfortunately, I cannot recommend another book, since I don't believe a single book is good enough, yet. In the meantime, if you have the time, pick up two or three books and read them in conjunction with Microsoft's documentation. Also, be sure to do some of your own programming to make sure the techniques described in the books perform as expected.
Rating: 
Summary: Programming VB.Net: A guide for Experienced Programmers
Review: I am an experienced VB 6 programmer, with little knowledge about VB.Net. I ordered a VS.Net subscription a week ago, and in the mean time I bought a copy of this book, with the hope that the book will help me to get started. Unfortunately, I could not find any help from this book. Finally, I was forced to look everything from MSDN online services.
With one week's experience, I gradually found that VB.Net has so many new features, and is so different from VB6. In order to help a hands-on programmer, many topics should be introduced or discussed. But,only a small part of them is covered in this one. The topics covered are in general not clear or detail enough. Samples are not provided sufficiently. Instead, it wasted many pages in talking about the theories of OOP. It is absolutely not what I expected. In short, I am very disappointed.
Rating:
Summary: Good book for learning OOP programming
Review: I am an intermediate VB6 programmer. I truelly enjoyed this book. It did not cover everything but what it did cover, it did a good job. The only concept I had problems with is Delegates. I thought the example used in that section was a little difficult. The section on printing was covered half-harzardly. I would have liked a better job in this section. I'll still recommend this book to anyone who needs basic knowledge on OOP programming.
Rating: 
Summary: Good intro book to VB .NET
Review: I am primarily a Unix C/C++ person, but thought I would learn VB .Net to do some Windows programming. I found this book enjoyable and easy to read. Although there were numerous errors in the example code, the text itself was very good. Of course this book is geared to those with some programming experience and is not a good choice for the beginner.
Rating:
Summary: Good intro book to VB .NET
Review: I am primarily a Unix C/C++ person, but thought I would learn VB .Net to do some Windows programming. I found this book enjoyable and easy to read. Although there were numerous errors in the example code, the text itself was very good. Of course this book is geared to those with some programming experience and is not a good choice for the beginner.
Rating: 
Summary: General Overview For General Reading
Review: I bought it and would have preferred more detail implementation issues. I feel that this book doesn't really provide me with any more information than I could get off of MSDN or by simply pressing the 'F1' Key. Consider purchasing if you are a beginner but reconsider if you have any significant experience or implemenations.
Rating:
Summary: Well written and hard to put down
Review: I bought this book and several others to prepare myself for the transition from VB6 to VB.NET. I wish they would have covered the disconnected datasets, ADO.NET and ASP.NET in more detail. I would have given it 5 stars if it had. Other than that, I feel that it is an excellent resource to prepare a programmer from any background for VS.NET. It does a good job of covering the OOP, Inheritance, Overloading, and multithreading subjects in a concise manner. The book also has a web site for errata and source code. Gary Cornell is a good author and it shows in this book he co-authored. I have a few Wrox Publishing Books, but my library is starting to collect more an more APRESS books because their style and format is what I expect from a book. Wrox does publish some good books also:
I would also recommend .NET Enterprise Development in VB.NET from Design to Deployment, ISBN 1861006179, (Wrox Publishers)
Rating:
Summary: Well written and hard to put down
Review: I bought this book and several others to prepare myself for the transition from VB6 to VB.NET. I wish they would have covered the disconnected datasets, ADO.NET and ASP.NET in more detail. I would have given it 5 stars if it had. Other than that, I feel that it is an excellent resource to prepare a programmer from any background for VS.NET. It does a good job of covering the OOP, Inheritance, Overloading, and multithreading subjects in a concise manner. The book also has a web site for errata and source code. Gary Cornell is a good author and it shows in this book he co-authored. I have a few Wrox Publishing Books, but my library is starting to collect more an more APRESS books because their style and format is what I expect from a book. Wrox does publish some good books also:
I would also recommend .NET Enterprise Development in VB.NET from Design to Deployment, ISBN 1861006179, (Wrox Publishers)
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