Microsoft Visual Basic .Net: Introduction to Programming, Second Edition

This book is something I would definitely recommend for anyone interested in breaking into programming by starting with Visual Basic. Perhaps the fact that Michael Sprague (the author) has been teaching for many years contributes to the easy-to-understand, no-nonsense flow of this book; I found other books on the same subject a little too daunting after this one. His Step-by-Step approach is very helpful, although it can be a bit tedious at times. This is not a "cookbook" or reference book - it does not show you how to learn to program in VB overnight (it has over 75 hours of lessons, but a few "projects" that come at the end of each chapter will probably take you longer to go through the book, especially if you are just starting to program). But each lesson builds on the previous one so you are always practicing what you are learning in this book. If you are a slow folk like me, you feel tremendously rewarded when you figure out a simple task or complete a project, and it really gets you thinking about how powerful VB is and all the things you can do with it once you are proficient at it.

this book really helped me to understand visual basics programming. if it wasn't for this book, i might have failed my class!