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PRObooks
Murach’s Visual Basic 2008
The first thing to note about this book and its C#
companion title, Murach’s C# 2008 by
Joel Murach, is that the books have more differences than most books that come
in both VB.NET and C# versions. The
differences are not great — the examples are the same, and the text is mostly
the same — but the organization is a bit different. For instance, in the VB.NET
version, database programming is covered before object-oriented programming,
but in the C# version, the order of these topics is reversed. Rather than simply
convert the samples between VB.NET and C#,
it is clear that the authors gave some thought as to the different needs of VB.NET
and C# programmers.
This is an excellent book for beginners. Section One starts
with the basics of working with Visual Studio and getting a simple program
working — and builds from there. Murach’s
Visual Basic 2008 even has an appendix that describes how to install Visual
Studio and SQL Server Express, and how to download and connect to the sample
database used in the book. It has lots of detailed instructions, and does
everything in a step by step manner. The book also very thorough. Even as an
experienced VB.NET programmer, I picked up a
new trick every few pages. This section also covers the Visual Studio “Smart
Compile Auto Correction” and the VB.NET “My”
features, both VB.NET-specific.
The second section covers the basics of the VB.NET
language, then expands into arrays and collections. I especially like that it
covers strings and dates at a level that is useful for everyday programming, explaining
the differences between the .NET DateTime
functions and the VB.NET language-specific
DateTime functions. I may keep this book handy just for the information it has
on formatting dates, which I still find difficult to get just right. This
section also covers the basics of creating and using classes, including how to
use Visual Studio to automatically create class diagrams. This is where Boehm
introduces debugging using Visual Studio, again covering details many books neglect.
I like how this book teaches not only VB.NET,
but Visual Studio as well. This is important, because for most programmers, .NET
programming is as much about Visual Studio as it is about .NET
or VB.NET.
The third section starts with a quick overview of
client-server databases and then shows how to query data from a single table
and from multiple joined tables. The section continues by demonstrating how to
connect to databases and retrieve data by having Visual Studio do the hard
work. It also covers all the ADO.NET
data classes and how they work together, and how to bind data to all the .NET
controls — including controls like the DataGrid control, which can display
whole tables, and those like the TextBox control, which can only display single
value. Murach’s Visual Basic 2008 then
moves into more advanced techniques, like parameterized queries and using the
ToolStrip control to allow users to create their own queries. The section
closes by detailing how to do by hand all the work that Visual Studio had been
doing for us; note that most programmers creating real-world database
applications do this work by hand because they need the added control over the
details.
The fourth section covers object-oriented programming,
from the basics to nested classes, and how to use classes to organize
applications.
The final section, titled “Other programming skills,” and
has five chapters. Chapters 21 and 22 cover reading and writing text, binary,
and XML files. Chapter 23 covers the new LINQ database technologies in .NET
3.5 (you’ll need a book just on LINQ to really get an understanding of this,
but this book provides a good introduction). Chapter 24 provides more
information on user interfaces, including single and multi-document interfaces,
menus, toolbars, and adding help to an application. The final chapter covers
how to deploy an application after you’ve built it, including XCopy deployment
of Windows applications, and ClickOnce deployment of Web applications. It
continues with creating set-up programs, and ends with deploying database
applications.
This is probably the best introductory book I’ve seen on
programming .NET. It is aimed at a college-level
audience who know nothing about programming. It assumes nothing, but gets
straight to the point with no pandering. It explains everything in detail, but
never wastes time sugar-coating anything. This book is not for advanced .NET
programmers, but it doesn’t’ try to be. It simply tries to be the best
introductory book on VB.NET, and it may well
have reached that goal.
I write software for psychologists. Though they are not
programmers, many have some experience with VB6, and would like the ability to
make small changes to the programs I write for them. At this point, this is the
only book I am recommending to them.
— Dennis Hayes
Rating: ééééé
Title: Murach’s Visual Basic 2008
Author: Anne
Boehm
Publisher: Murach
ISBN: 978-1-890774-45-5
Web Site: http://www.murach.com
Price: US$52.50
Page Count: 820
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