Sams Teach Yourself .Net Windows Forms in 21 Days

I'd like to offer a different perspective on this book than the previous reviewer. I think it's a pretty well written book and I still use it today as a reference in my job training MCSD candidates. One of the good things about the book is it's comprehensive coverage of so many topics (which is one reason I use it as a reference source). Also, Chris's writing style is enjoyable and he communicates well - his ASP.NET book is extremely popular and this book shares a lot of the same qualities.Yes, it would have been better if it had covered using VS.NET instead of just using text files and the command line compilers but like many .NET books this book was written while VS.NET was still in beta. If you publish a book full of pictures and instructions dealing with the beta version of a tool and then the released version is significantly different, you have big problems. So most publishers produced books on the command line tools. Besides, to really understand something like .NET it's good to know how to code it by hand. Ideally you'd read two books, one like this that codes by hand and one that shows you how to use the power of the IDE.As to having to download anything extra to compile and run the programs in the book, if you have VS.NET installed then you have the command line compilers. Duh!If you like the "teach yourself in 21 day" style of learning topics by working with lots of example programs and if you want to know how to code .NET by hand (so you can understand the code the IDE is generating) this is a good book for you.