Murach's Visual Basic 2005

My perspective on this book is that of a true beginner. I know a lot about programming and languages, but have no experience designing or writing programs/code beyond following the bouncing ball in books such as this. This book is great...and not so great at the same time...for a true beginner. It is exactly as advertised, "No other book teaches so much, so fast, so thoroughly," but therein lies the problem for we experience-challenged readers. The pace is quick, i.e., topic-to-topic, and many times I had lingering questions about what I'd just read while finding myself halfway into the next topic. The book assumes a certain level of knowledge and/or experience that is somewhere between novice and expert...and I'm still at the 'step-by-step book' stage...so I expect to get a lot more from it in the months ahead than I have thus far. I know enough now to know that what I will need is in there... That said...whatta book! It will be among the most used of my reference books because it covers such a wide range of topics so well and because it covers those topics comprehensively. As my understanding of the language progresses, I'll have this book to refer to when I need to learn more about specific aspects of the language and its implementation. I've wasted some money on VB2005 books, but not on this one. Anne Boehm and Mike Murach delivered the goods.

I like the layout of this book. Each topic is explained in detail using paired pages with the first page of the pair containing the detail and the second page of the pair containing a summary of key points. There are also a number of benchmark projects that demonstrate the concepts that have been covered. I was particularly impressed with level of detail contained in the chapters on Database Programming and Object-Oriented programming. I would particularly recommend this book for beginning to intermediate level developers. I look forward to reading other books by this publisher.

This book should be required reading for any application developer using Visual Basic. The layout of syntax, guidelines, and examples on one page with explanations on a matching page provide an easy and quick reference to information. The "paired pages" format: How-to on the left page and examples on the right makes this a great reference book. It is a straight-forward presentation of Visual Basic 2005 information and a book that will stay on my bookshelf.

Murach's has developed a winning template for developing Training and Reference books, and Visual Basic 2005 is no exception. A great feature is the placement of diagrams and illustrations are always found on the page facing the illustration, making it easier to follow the instructions. Anyone with an experience level of beginner or Intermediate will gain a full measure of usable skills using this book as a How-To for common programming tasks. More advanced programmers will find it a great reference for those times when you just need to figure that out. It's an excellent investment in a personal training library...

I have always found that the best programming books are ones that can be used as a reference when you just need syntax or usage examples or as a training manual when you want complete procedures and techniques for creating applications. Murach books are the ideal solution to both needs, whether it involves writing code for the mainframe or windows applications. The new Murach Visual Basic 2005 book is a valuable guide for the beginning and experienced Visual Basic programmer by providing well written explanations on the basics of using Visual Studio 2005 features and Visual Basic language essentials. Murach Publishing uses a unique "paired-page" format with the right page giving a summary of the technique being presented and the left page giving a more detailed explanation. Section one begins with a Visual Studio walkthrough including new features such as code snippets and Visual Basic's My feature which simplifies the code needed to accessing .NET framework classes such as the registry. Section two provides the language basics in data manipulation, control statements, exception handling, class creation and usage, basic debugging, and collections including the new .NET 2.0 typed collections which when used prevents run-time errors by not allowing different data types to be added to the typed collection. Once language essentials are covered it's time to use databases. Section three consists of 5 chapters beginning with an introduction to databases and continuing with ADO.NET. This section has been largely rewritten for the new ADO.NET 2.0 classes which if you are familiar with ADO.NET 1.x shows you how much easier it is to attach and use a database. Visual Studio 2005 has new features such as the Data Source window and Smart Tags and new controls like the SQLDataAdapter and DataGridView that make database application programming almost intuitive and greatly reduces the amount of code the programmer has to write. Section four concentrates on rounding out your knowledge of object-oriented programming making your applications more robust and flexible. The new features of Visual Basic 2005 in this section are partial classes which allow you to split a class across multiple files and generics letting you create your own typed collections with added functionality. Finally section five presents techniques required for using text and binary files including the new My.Computer.Filesystem object, working with XML files, enhancing Windows Forms, and deployment with XCOPY and Click Once which lets you install an application via a link on a web page. I can honestly say that Murach's Visual Basic 2005 is a solid choice for a first book in a programmer's Visual Basic library.