your favorite VB 2005 book?

[www.douglassdavis.com]

I'm looking for advice here, and I would really appreciate it if you
could help.



Is there a VB 2005 book that you like and would recommend (and why)?

Would you consider it good for beginners to programming, intermediate,
or advanced level?

thanks.

 

[vbnetdev]

Programming Microsoft Visual Basic 2005: The Language by Francesco Balena

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0735621837/ref=pd_cp_b_title/105-2966888-9022846

 

[Cor Ligthert [MVP]]

Kelly,

You did not answer the question

I have the opinion that about books the starting level is very important.
The OP did not write that, therefore is in my opinion no answer possible
otherwise than that everybody tells his own level, which is in my opinion to
much asked because the OP can tell it himself.

This message as well more in general for those who ask advices about books
and things like that.

As forever, just my opinion of course..

Cor

Programming Microsoft Visual Basic 2005: The Language by Francesco Balena

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0735621837/ref=pd_cp_b_title/105-2966888-9022846

 

[vbnetdev]

My apologies of course. I started with Balena's books but I had a background
in vba. So I would say you should have some coding background.

Kelly,

You did not answer the question

I have the opinion that about books the starting level is very important.
The OP did not write that, therefore is in my opinion no answer possible
otherwise than that everybody tells his own level, which is in my opinion
to much asked because the OP can tell it himself.

This message as well more in general for those who ask advices about books
and things like that.

As forever, just my opinion of course..

Cor

 

[RobinS]

It depends on how you define "beginner". Beginner to VB completely?
Or knows VB6 or another language and is trying to learn the 2005
version?

I read that book by Mr. Balena. I really, really liked it. I wouldn't
say it was for people who are completely new to VB. I knew VB6 and
read it, and understood it pretty well. I think it would be good
for intermediate/advanced people, too.

I also read "Standard Practices and Procedures" by Balena (which has
examples in both VB and C#) and really liked that one as well.
That's more an intermediate/advanced book, discussing performance
and best practices and explaining why. It's also VB/C#2003, not 2005,
but most of the info still applies. I didn't agree with everything
in the book though (he's sticking with Hungarian notation, or at
least, was when he wrote the book).

For beginners to both VB and to VB2005, I recommend Tim Patrick's
"Start-to-Finish VB2005". It's also good for intermediate; it
covers a lot of topics, and you end up building an entire application,
so you can see how all of the components work together.

Another of my favorite books is Brian Noyes's Data Binding book. It
has a lot of great information in it. It's definitely an intermediate/
advanced book. It's in C#, but the download code is both VB and C#.

For data, I like "ADO.Net The Core Reference" by David Sceppa.
I think it's for any level. It's mostly data access stuff.
There's *some* stuff about data binding, but winforms is not the
focus of the book. It also focuses on SQLServer data access,
not so much Access or Oracle.

I didn't like the Microsoft Step-By-Step beginner's book. It has
some stuff in it that I know isn't the recommended way of doing
things, and it bugged me. I got the feeling it was written before
VB2005 was finalized. It was for the true beginner.

I read the Thearon Willis & Bryan Newsome book, "Beginning VB.Net".
I think it was also written before VB2005 was finalized. It had a
number of bugs. It was a good basic book, though, for any kind of
beginner.

My very favorite was "Doing Objects in VB2005" by Deborah Kurata.
It explained the n-layer model and OOP, along with a bunch of
Visual Studio tricks and tips, but it won't be published until
March 2007. You could use it if you were new to VB2005, but not
if you were new to VB -- it's not *that* kind of book.

That's my 10 cents' worth. (Inflation.)

Robin S.

 

[www.douglassdavis.com]

It depends on how you define "beginner". Beginner to VB completely?
Or knows VB6 or another language and is trying to learn the 2005
version?

beginner to VB completely.

 

[Herfried K. Wagner [MVP]]

My apologies of course. I started with Balena's books but I had a
background in vba. So I would say you should have some coding background.

I know Balena's book and I agree.

 

[Martin Milan]

For beginners to both VB and to VB2005, I recommend Tim Patrick's
"Start-to-Finish VB2005". It's also good for intermediate; it
covers a lot of topics, and you end up building an entire application,
so you can see how all of the components work together.

I bought this book a couple of weeks ago.

I like the way he uses humour to break the tedium - it's a good book...

 

[Bruce W. Darby]

For a complete beginner to VB, I found John Smiley's "Learn to Program
VB.Net" useful. The book has a lot of fluff, but if you have absolutely no
idea of what to do at all, it brings you along and gets you up to speed
quickly.

 

[TAVOSOFT via DotNetMonster.com]

Hi Robin ,
I am thinking to buy you book Start-to-Finish Visual Basic 2005: Learn Visual
Basic 2005 as You Design and Develop a Complete Application.

I wanna Knows if the application (the library) is complete and perfectly
functional and free of errors?

The design of the application is showed complete and step by step in the book
?

Thanks you .

It depends on how you define "beginner". Beginner to VB completely?
Or knows VB6 or another language and is trying to learn the 2005
version?

I read that book by Mr. Balena. I really, really liked it. I wouldn't
say it was for people who are completely new to VB. I knew VB6 and
read it, and understood it pretty well. I think it would be good
for intermediate/advanced people, too.

I also read "Standard Practices and Procedures" by Balena (which has
examples in both VB and C#) and really liked that one as well.
That's more an intermediate/advanced book, discussing performance
and best practices and explaining why. It's also VB/C#2003, not 2005,
but most of the info still applies. I didn't agree with everything
in the book though (he's sticking with Hungarian notation, or at
least, was when he wrote the book).

For beginners to both VB and to VB2005, I recommend Tim Patrick's
"Start-to-Finish VB2005". It's also good for intermediate; it
covers a lot of topics, and you end up building an entire application,
so you can see how all of the components work together.

Another of my favorite books is Brian Noyes's Data Binding book. It
has a lot of great information in it. It's definitely an intermediate/
advanced book. It's in C#, but the download code is both VB and C#.

For data, I like "ADO.Net The Core Reference" by David Sceppa.
I think it's for any level. It's mostly data access stuff.
There's *some* stuff about data binding, but winforms is not the
focus of the book. It also focuses on SQLServer data access,
not so much Access or Oracle.

I didn't like the Microsoft Step-By-Step beginner's book. It has
some stuff in it that I know isn't the recommended way of doing
things, and it bugged me. I got the feeling it was written before
VB2005 was finalized. It was for the true beginner.

I read the Thearon Willis & Bryan Newsome book, "Beginning VB.Net".
I think it was also written before VB2005 was finalized. It had a
number of bugs. It was a good basic book, though, for any kind of
beginner.

My very favorite was "Doing Objects in VB2005" by Deborah Kurata.
It explained the n-layer model and OOP, along with a bunch of
Visual Studio tricks and tips, but it won't be published until
March 2007. You could use it if you were new to VB2005, but not
if you were new to VB -- it's not *that* kind of book.

That's my 10 cents' worth. (Inflation.)

Robin S.
-------------------------------------------

My apologies of course. I started with Balena's books but I had a
background in vba. So I would say you should have some coding

[quoted text clipped - 41 lines]

 

[RobinS]

I think the book is really good. I'm in chapter 18 (3/4 of the way
through the book, about 90%+ of
the code done, according to the author). (I'm reading a couple of other
books at the same time,
and my head may explode any day now.) I think the book explains most
things well. It has a lot
of humor in it, which makes it a lot less dry than other books.

There is a *lot* of code. The author has you use code snippets to add
the code, which
is clever. I sort of wish he would explain more. For example, in the
GDI+ chapter, he shows a
lot of commands to create stuff, but doesn't explain what all the
parameters mean. On the
other hand, it is easily looked up in MSDN.

So far, I have only found one error, and it was in some sample code
where he shows
how to put graphics in a ComboBox, not in the actual project code. The
only problem
with it was he needed to cast a couple of calculated values to Single,
so it was easy
to fix.

The only problem I've had with his code is that the screens draw funny
on my
computer. Some of them are chopped off at the bottom. I'm going to post
a
question about that to the dotnet.windowforms newsgroup as soon as I get
around
to it. The author said neither he nor any of the tech reviewers had that
problem,
so in all likelihood it's something about my display settings.

The only other "issue" one might have with the book is that it doesn't
follow the n-layer
design methodology, and doesn't always follow standard practices, like
in the naming
of the controls. On the other hand, you might argue that as long as an
entire application
follows its own standards consistently, that's okay. It might be that
that's okay for
small business desktop applications. Aside from this, there's still a
lot of good
information in the book.

Overall, I'd have to say I learned a lot from reading the book, and will
come back to it
in the future. I'm kind of impatient, so I didn't stop to figure out
every single line of
code that was added to the project; I figured I could come back to those
sections
when I needed to in the future. It's important to know what the
possibilities are, so
I can use those ideas in designing future applications. I can always
look up the details.

My two cents' worth.
Robin S.
------------------------------------------------

Hi Robin ,
I am thinking to buy you book Start-to-Finish Visual Basic 2005: Learn
Visual
Basic 2005 as You Design and Develop a Complete Application.

I wanna Knows if the application (the library) is complete and
perfectly
functional and free of errors?

The design of the application is showed complete and step by step in
the book
?

Thanks you .

It depends on how you define "beginner". Beginner to VB completely?
Or knows VB6 or another language and is trying to learn the 2005
version?

I read that book by Mr. Balena. I really, really liked it. I wouldn't
say it was for people who are completely new to VB. I knew VB6 and
read it, and understood it pretty well. I think it would be good
for intermediate/advanced people, too.

I also read "Standard Practices and Procedures" by Balena (which has
examples in both VB and C#) and really liked that one as well.
That's more an intermediate/advanced book, discussing performance
and best practices and explaining why. It's also VB/C#2003, not 2005,
but most of the info still applies. I didn't agree with everything
in the book though (he's sticking with Hungarian notation, or at
least, was when he wrote the book).

For beginners to both VB and to VB2005, I recommend Tim Patrick's
"Start-to-Finish VB2005". It's also good for intermediate; it
covers a lot of topics, and you end up building an entire application,
so you can see how all of the components work together.

Another of my favorite books is Brian Noyes's Data Binding book. It
has a lot of great information in it. It's definitely an intermediate/
advanced book. It's in C#, but the download code is both VB and C#.

For data, I like "ADO.Net The Core Reference" by David Sceppa.
I think it's for any level. It's mostly data access stuff.
There's *some* stuff about data binding, but winforms is not the
focus of the book. It also focuses on SQLServer data access,
not so much Access or Oracle.

I didn't like the Microsoft Step-By-Step beginner's book. It has
some stuff in it that I know isn't the recommended way of doing
things, and it bugged me. I got the feeling it was written before
VB2005 was finalized. It was for the true beginner.

I read the Thearon Willis & Bryan Newsome book, "Beginning VB.Net".
I think it was also written before VB2005 was finalized. It had a
number of bugs. It was a good basic book, though, for any kind of
beginner.

My very favorite was "Doing Objects in VB2005" by Deborah Kurata.
It explained the n-layer model and OOP, along with a bunch of
Visual Studio tricks and tips, but it won't be published until
March 2007. You could use it if you were new to VB2005, but not
if you were new to VB -- it's not *that* kind of book.

That's my 10 cents' worth. (Inflation.)

Robin S.
-------------------------------------------

My apologies of course. I started with Balena's books but I had a
background in vba. So I would say you should have some coding

[quoted text clipped - 41 lines]

 

[John Timney \(MVP\)]

Microsoft have a couple on their site for free - worth a look given they
cost nothing but a download

http://www.johntimney.com/blog/default.aspx#a9468f147-1a2a-4a9e-85c2-4496ac535009

Regards

John Timney (MVP)
http://www.johntimney.com
http://www.johntimney.com/blog