Rating: 
Summary: Excellent resource for the beginner VB .NET programmer
Review: This is an excellent source of information written in such a clear concise way that you'll be up and running with the basic concepts in no time. The section on ADO .NET is one of the clearest I've read in the .NET books I've purchased.I guess you could say that it doesnt go into ALL topics, or all topics very deeply. You'll need to buy a dedicated ASP.net book to get the intracacies of that particular topic under your belt...same for web services I imagine, but as a first book for someone coming from a previous version of VB you can't really fault this as an excellent book to buy and worth every penny. One criticism I have, which extends to most books on the subject I've read, is that they don't differentiate enough between the web form controls and the win form controls..data binding and the datagirid in particualr coming to mind as an example of how things can be different. Still,I would definately buy another John Connel book if he writes about any other VB .NET topics, his writing style is excellent. why are you still reading this?...use that patented one click ordering and get your copy today :)
Rating:
Summary: A seminal landmark in technical literary acheivement!
Review: This is an outstanding book that I would recommend unhesitatingly to programmers or would-be programmers of all levels. The author painlessly leads the reader through a host of complex topics, including object-oriented programming, the vast .Net namespaces and libraries, ADO.NET, ASP.NET, and file and XML operations, among other topics. The book is very well written and explains complex topics in a straight-forward manner. The true strength of the book is the numerous lengthy real-life coding examples that reinforce key concepts. These coding examples go far beyond the pedantic code-snippets that are far to prevalent in programming books, and serve to demonstrate coding techniques in real-world situations. Don't waste any more time reading this review. Go out now and buy this book!
Rating:
Summary: Best Book on VB.NET I've Found
Review: This is far and away the best book I've found on VB.NET. It is well written, and offers excellent perspective on VB.NET and .NET Framework, with enough detail so that the reader (together with some hands-on experience) will have a good depth of knowledge when he's finished. Highly recommended!
Rating:
Summary: Solid hands on advice and overview
Review: This is not a book for a novice programmer. It is geared towards the meeting the needs of professional system programmers. You won't find anything here on MDI, GDI+ or a host of other VB features. For example, the steps behind attaching buttons to code could have been illustrated much more explicitly. So if you are still coming to terms with the core of VB, this book could produce a rather serious challenge. Consequently, the text is not a substitute for other broader overviews of VB.Net. That being said, one of the exceptional strengths of the book is its efficient working through of the tool side of VB - which is huge. Whether you want to create a form, a class, a module, an ASP project, the author has the way picked out pretty cleanly. The CLR and Assembly sections are very written and really worth the effort. The section of ADO.NET is good, but tends to rehash a lot of Microsoft technical information. Inevitable probably. The ELIZA program design gives a good insight into using collections efficiently. However, files and streams are treated too abruptly for my liking. One of the other attractive aspects of the book is the lack of navel gazing about types and their cousins. Types are dealt with very practically (might not satisfy everyone). Unfortunately, the style is at times a bit too terse. For instance, I don't think this is a useful book from which to pick up OO skills. It covers class creation with a few very specific examples and then moves on. Theoretical digressions are noticeable by their absence. Again, a supplementary text will help here. Overall, however, I am very keen on this book. I learnt a lot more from it than I expected, and it is very well written. It is certainly a very valuable reference text.
Rating:
Summary: Solid hands on advice and overview
Review: This is not a book for a novice programmer. It is geared towards the meeting the needs of professional system programmers. You won't find anything here on MDI, GDI+ or a host of other VB features. For example, the steps behind attaching buttons to code could have been illustrated much more explicitly. So if you are still coming to terms with the core of VB, this book could produce a rather serious challenge. Consequently, the text is not a substitute for other broader overviews of VB.Net. That being said, one of the exceptional strengths of the book is its efficient working through of the tool side of VB - which is huge. Whether you want to create a form, a class, a module, an ASP project, the author has the way picked out pretty cleanly. The CLR and Assembly sections are very written and really worth the effort. The section of ADO.NET is good, but tends to rehash a lot of Microsoft technical information. Inevitable probably. The ELIZA program design gives a good insight into using collections efficiently. However, files and streams are treated too abruptly for my liking. One of the other attractive aspects of the book is the lack of navel gazing about types and their cousins. Types are dealt with very practically (might not satisfy everyone). Unfortunately, the style is at times a bit too terse. For instance, I don't think this is a useful book from which to pick up OO skills. It covers class creation with a few very specific examples and then moves on. Theoretical digressions are noticeable by their absence. Again, a supplementary text will help here. Overall, however, I am very keen on this book. I learnt a lot more from it than I expected, and it is very well written. It is certainly a very valuable reference text.
| 
