Category Archives: Reviews

The trouble with most books on technologies like .NET is they try to be all things to all people, and end up being either too shallow or far too long.

This book is a very welcome exception. This is how technical books should be written: no messing about, no unnecessary repetition, but all the material is covered clearly in about 250 pages. A very clear target audience (experienced VB6 developers), and clear objectives help – the book’s intention is clearly to communicate the essentials, and the practitioner will then get more detail from other sources. It’s one of the few books of its type which can be read from cover to cover.

The book isn’t perfect: I spotted a few proof-reading errors (in an early copy based on the Beta version of VS.NET); some examples are a little difficult to follow, and some topics inevitably rather sketchy.

However, I can thoroughly recommend this book, although I suggest that the serious VB developer will probably need other volumes as well: I also purchased "ASP.NET for Developers" by Amundsen & Litwin, and "The Visual Basic Programmer’s Guide to the .NET Framework Class Library" by Powers & Snell, both in the same series from Sams.