Beginning VB.NET 2003

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BeginningVB.NET 2003

Manydevelopers were shocked when Wrox publishing went out of business because offinancial setbacks. They were deeply concerned that few, if any, otherpublishers would be able to fill the void. The smart people at Wiley Publishingrealized the tremendous brand value of the Wrox name, and more importantly they recognized the talented collection of authors that Wrox had brought to themarket. As such, Wrox was reborn as a Wiley imprint and developers everywhere,especially those making a living using Microsoft s technologies, can again relyon the straightforward approach and uncomplicated page layout that made Wroxtitles so popular and easy on the eyes.

BeginningVB.NET 2003 is anupdate to the Beginning VB.NET series.Since the original edition was released in October 2001, the book has gonethrough a second revision based on reader and reviewer feedback, culminating inthis, the most polished release to date. Although the 2003 refresh is missingthe writing contributions of Matt Reynolds, it still succeeds at delivering asolid, easy read for people new to the art of computer programming. Sadly,contributing author, VB.NET expert Richard Blair, lost his battle againstcancer in December 2003, and future editions will surely lack his passion forintroducing new coders to the joy of programming.

Thelevel of this book is at the lowest rung of the learning how to program ladder. The authors use VB.NET s syntax to teach the basics, which makes it agood book to share with Computer Science 101 students learning to program forthe first time within the managed code boundaries of the .NET Framework.

Thefirst third of the book features the obligatory orientation to the VisualStudio.NET 2003 IDE, followed by the fundamentals of GUI programming: flowcontrol, data structures, creating a window, dialog boxes, menus, debugging anderror handling. Midway through, readers are catapulted into the world ofobject-oriented programming, building class libraries, custom controls, and graphics.A meager two chapters briefly discuss interacting with databases via SQL Serverand ADO.NET. These are by far the weakest chapters in the book.

Chapterson Web forms, Web server controls, XML, and Web services follow, and the bookconcludes with application deployment and building mobile applications usingthe .NET Compact Framework. Although brief, the last chapter is particularlyuseful for Windows mobile device users. This chapter serves to reinforce thepower and development simplicity of .NET beyond the desktop. It also leavesreaders with a small, yet practical, Web-enabled starter application to buildupon.

Althoughsegments of the book have been updated to reflect the changes between theVS.NET and VS.NET 2003 IDEs, little more has changed between editions. Whatthis book really serves Wiley with is a way to redistribute some excellent workthat, because of Wrox s situation, was hard to find. Readers of prior editionswon t have much incentive to purchase this 2003 update, but newcomers toprogramming via the .NET roadway will find this educational text an easy readthat will satisfy their key learning objectives.

Mike Riley

Rating:

Title: Beginning VB.NET 2003

Authors: Thearon Willis, JonathanCrossland, and Richard Blair

Publisher: Wiley Publishing, Inc.

ISBN: 0-7645-5658-4

BookWeb Site: http://www.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-0764556584.html

Price: US$39.95

PageCount: 840 pages