MCSD in a Nutshell: The Visual Basic Exams

I just passed the 70-176 exam yesterday. (bear with me, I am such a happy camper right now that I felt I should share the source of my success for those who are looking for good study materials) I have to give a huge amount of credit to the O'Reilly book MCSD in a Nutshell. The book is geared for the 70-176 and 70-175 exams. What I liked is that the book started off with the assumption that you know the basics of VB and you now want to get into the more meaty topics. It is very well written and digs deeply into COM Components and ActiveX Controls. Each Chapter has a summary at the beginning that lists the topics and which of the two exams they apply to. It also has little "side bars" throught the chapters on things you should remember for the exams. The Key Facts, review questions and exercises at the end of each chapter are also very appropriate.I had also used the MCSD Training Kit from MS. That book was not nearly enough. MCSD in a Nutshell turned out to be a much better investment. Get it. You won't be disappointed.

Finally, a book that can effectively prepare me for the Visual Basic exams. This is my third book purchased to study for the Visual Basic exams. The first two books were shelved after the first couple of chapters. I have been coding Visual Basic professionally off and on since version 1.0. This book was love at first site. After reading the first chapter, I know that even if I did not proceed with the exams I was not wasting my time reading the book. The information is concise, informative and real world.This book is a survival guide as well as a study guide. I already used the book several times to resolve programming issues and design techniques. 80% of my development time is programming around the Visual Basic quirks and unknowns. The book touches on these quirks and defines the fine line differences. The kicker of it all, I e-mailed the author a question relating to a topic in the book. He e-mailed me back a response within an hour with different resolution options.

I used MSPress VB 6 Study Kits as well as New Riders to prepare for my MCSD exams. I passed my 70-175 today with 914. I actually thought I was ready after reading the above mentioned books. When a friend suggested this one I thought it would not hurt to try it out. This is the best investment I have made in books. This book is not for the begginer. It is a treasure chest of practical information. It feels like I am speaking to a very experience professor whom is giving me all the tricks of the trade. This guy actually answers questions others assume you know the answer for. After certifying yourself sell off all your VB study books and just keep this on your shelf together with the MS Reference Library.

Great buy ! A good resource for experience VB programmers looking to get certified. It assumes you know all the basics and focuses on all relevant aspects of VB. Especially useful because programmers generally use a restricted set features but this book gives a good overall understanding of all topics.

I have looked at several of the MCSD books available and most tend to spend too much time on things every VB programmer should know before even *considering* certification. You will not find how to fill a listbox in this book. Or how to create a control array. Another thing about most of the MCSD books that bothers me, is that most of them cut and paste their tutorial sample code from Microsoft... no origninality and little real-world issues.This author covers real world issues that are truly important when designing a VB project. His style of writing is clear and straightforward. I appreciate this.Microsoft makes an effort to make the MCSD certification meaningful by including questions on the exams that you will only know the answer to if you have confronted the issue in your own experience or know the concepts so well, that you can think through the problem to a solution. This weeds out people who have no experience whatsoever and study a book in order to get the cert. I enjoyed the coverage of incorporating help and optimization; issues that can really make or break an application.This book is NOT a How to Program with VB beginner book... rather a discussion of the key concepts that experienced programmers need to know to be certified.Thank you Mr. Foxall!