VB. NET Language in a Nutshell (2nd Edition)

✍ Scribed by Steven Roman PhD, Ron Petrusha, Paul Lomax

• Publisher: O'Reilly Media
• Year: 2002
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 670
• Edition: 2nd
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

I absolutely highly recommend this book.

Having read through several .NET books with no rhyme or reason whatsoever as to how they're put together, I was hoping this book would become a concise beginning point of reference for me.

Boy was I wrong! I use this book constantly. The first week I had it, I referenced it almost daily, and not just for the quick-fix-reminders (in which order do those stupid DateDiff arguments come?). There are nine chapters before the actual reference, which are a veritable tome of information not found anywhere else (at least, not by me). In fact, I'd venture to say that the chapter on OOP should be required reading before you can even download the framework. There are a lot of concepts in that chapter that are required even to build simple apps in ASP.NET (not to mention VB.NET) that in Classic ASP were not necessary.

So, who is VB.NET in a Nutshell good for? The book goes into great detail about the differences between VB 6 and VB.NET: each chapter includes the relevant differences to the topic at hand; and each reference entry includes a section on VB6/VB.NET differences. So if you're looking for a book to ease your transition to the .NET world, this is all you need. If you are new to programming, then you have several chapters on the major concepts, as well as a roughly 450-page section on the VB.NET Language. In fact, on page xi of the preface, it actually says (and I paraphrase): Developers who know Visual Basic; developers who know other programming languages; and developers who are new to programming. Well, shucks, that's pretty much anyone who's reading this review, isn't it?
Stop reading now. Buy it.

I said stop.