The .NET Languages: A Quick Translation Guide

The just-the-facts approach in this text is its best feature. By keeping the commentary to a minimum, the book quickly introduces you to what you need to know. The author shows how specific language features are implemented in three different languages, beginning with basic constructs like data types and flow control statements. Technically, both Visual Basic .NET and the new C# are equal partners in Visual Studio .NET. This book can save two types of users significant time: those moving from VB 6 to VB .NET and those thinking about upgrading their VB skills to C# (an option, now that the languages are so close).

The book does a good job comparing the use of common class design constructs for methods and properties and how to use inheritance and interfaces. This material will likely justify the cover price of the book for many readers, as it is tricky to get right, and each of the new .NET languages uses slightly different keywords and conventions when it comes to class design.

Later chapters cover essential .NET APIs with code snippets that will also help you save time. In particular, we liked how the author illustrates how to get started with ADO.NET and databases. Also useful here is a section on COM interoperability with .NET (as this is likely to be a common programming chore).

By keeping explanations short and sweet and letting short code excerpts do most of the talking (along with short, complete programs), the author has devised a very useful text, one that can demystify what's new and different about .NET for any VB or C# programmer. Timely, concise, and deftly organized, this title is a perfect choice for those who like to learn new programming languages by example. Few programming titles can claim to be as immediately useful as this one. --Richard Dragan

Topics covered: Tutorial and comparative language comparison for Visual Basic 6, Visual Basic .NET, and C#; case sensitivity, commenting styles, variables, and procedures used in each language; data types and conversion functions; operators compared; conditional statements and loops; working with collections; exception-handling basics; class design across three .NET languages (including constructors, methods and properties, finalizers, and overloading techniques); interfaces and inheritance in each language; declaring and handling events; using the String and StringBuilder classes; using Windows Forms (and the Visual Studio IDE form designer); ADO.NET basics (including forward-only access with DataReaders and the DataGrid control); math and financial functions; collections (including iterating through collections); common interoperability in .NET (including early and late binding); examining application settings; logging events; introduction to drawing in forms; basic printing; and sample snippets for showing essential .NET APIs at work.