The Book of VB.NET: .Net Insight for VB Developers

This book was terrific. I usually do not read technical books cover to cover, I usually just go to the chapters I need when I need them. However, this book was so good, that I read every page. The author does a terrific job of explaining the differences between VB and VB.Net. It has great examples and terrific insight into .Net, OOP, Bugproofing and error handling, XML, databases, ado.net, and much more. If you are serious about becoming a VB.NET developer, you must have this book.

I'm converting from VB6. I've bought a few books on VB .NET including those by Balena and Connell. This book suits me perfectly. It is very clear, sufficiently comprehensive with a very readable and pleasant style without being patronizing or clever clever. The best introduction to the new IDE I've come across and then it gets even better. I greatly appreciate Matthew MacDonald's obvious expertise and his ability to communicate it. I haven't written many revues but this book deserves one.

The author accomplishes exactly what he set out to do, provide insight into VB.Net. Lots of good code samples that work as advertised and support the book's discussion. This book is not a rehash of the product documentation it goes way beyond to show you how things actually work and how you can use them. Very good code samples from a best practices point of view.

First plus of this book: ONE AUTHOR. Therefore there is a consistent "voice" throughout the book. He writes as though you are having a conversation and explains things in a way that was easy for me (a VB programmer with many years of VB and many more of other xBase languages) to understand. Additionally, when he is explaining a topic and mentions another process that might be new to a VB programmer, he will address that right away. Even if just to say, "by the way, that other thing I mentioned is explained in Chapter 10". My big test for this book was if someone could FINALLY explain "delegates" to me, and he passed with flying stars. I have read two magazine articles and two chapters from other books on this topic and they were like reading physics manuals. So MacDonald has me as a new fan!

The unique cover of this book caught my eye and the excellent writing kept me reading. Experienced VB developers will immediately be thankful to Matthew MacDonald for assuming his audience is VB savvy and in no mood to again be ?introduced? to the concept of the IDE and the If-Then-Else statement. The author begins his book with an introduction of the philosophical differences between the .NET framework and classic Visual Studio. He then moves onto .NET terminology and concepts. To his credit, Mr. MacDonald does a good job of addressing the ?why? questions one might have of .NET before introducing the ?how-to? solutions. Personally, this put me into a .NET comfort zone, which I expect, many .NET first-time users will appreciate. The author intentionally steers away from building useless ?Hello World? applications and instead focuses on piecemeal snippets of code that highlight exactly the topic at hand. I?ve purchased many technical books on a variety of subjects and, by far, this one has been the most readable.In my opinion, this is a must-have for experienced VB programmers who want an introduction to the philosophy, concepts, jargon and syntax of the .NET framework and VB.NET.