The format of the book is unique, left page for explanation and right page for coding. This might be great for programmers who prefer coding than reading, since the explanation is brief and direct to the point. This is very different from the Deitels book that explains things over and over again in many pages - the reason for the bulkiness.

I've read 4 chapters now and excited to write this feedback, since i've learned a lot from the book, unlike any other. The book is not trying to spoon feed the reader but just enough hand holding is done so as not to make the beginning programmer rely solely on the book and not use his own logic. There are quite a number of good vb.net books out there but this one will be sitting right beside my computer for quick learning and easy reference. I plan of supplementing my learning with another good book as suggested by colleagues, the mastering book by petroutsos and the step by step book my halvorson.

All the negative things that have been pointed out in other reviews are true. The writing is bad, the format leaves something to be desired, the explanation of difficult concepts is just not there, etc.

However, this book is much better than other books I have seen on the subject - this includes the SAMS books, the For Dummies Books, and WROX books.

Whereas, the instruction doesn't pour off the page, you can actually learn VB.Net from this book. You may have to reread a page 3 or 4 times -due to the poor explanations, but once you do you can learn from this book.

If anyone knows of a better book on the subject, please let others know.

To summarize, this book is not great, but it is the best book I found on the subject.

What this book is, and I think it does a very good job of it, is a book for the absolute beginner. The person how has never coded in a windows environment and needs a place to start. The author introduces a project that grows and as new topics are added or expanded upon the project grows likewise - so you see the code and your thought process develop.

What this book is not, is a reference to help experienced VB6 developers make the leap to .NET If you are an experienced windows developer, trust me this is not for you. I purchased the book several months ago to tackle my fist .NET application. Granted the application I choose to undertake was far too sophisticated for a fist .NET experience, but all the same, even if it was much simpler, I still seriously doubt that the book would have been of any relevant value.

As we all know authors use the word introduction / beginning for more marketing value than to reflect content. In this case the author calls it for what it is - If you are an absolute beginner, this is the right, can't go wrong choice.

Hope this helps,
HabWorks

If you're an absolute beginner, you might find this book helpful. Otherwise find another book. If you've worked with VB6, almost everything covered in this book (with the exception of the very brief coverage of ADO Net) is almost intuitive.

What irritates me most is the poor grammar. Practically every paragraph has a sentence starting like "Then, ...". The "Then" phrase is not needed and the comma is erroneous.

I do use it, however, for a quick reference regarding file IO.

If you want to know how to write a (useful) class, generate and handle events, and other slightly more advanced concepts, this book won't help you.

This book is very well written, and the facing page style of instruction is a great method.

I found no errors; there was no evidence of "author fatigue" towards the mid-end of the book; and Ms. Prince is able to anticipate and address the logical questions that come next in the student's mind.

Beginning with the basics, this book then progresses (very logically) to more difficult concepts such as multi-dimensional arrays, structures and collections, and parsing and reading/writing data to/from files; including xml. The final six chapters deal with databases and web projects.

I highly recommend this book... but be ready to work because the chapter exercises, though sometimes difficult, really drive home the concepts.

Not bad for beginners. But it's a far cry from being "the best book you can find on the subject". I suggest Mike Murach gets a bit humbler with those statements. The content is good, and if the author hadn't managed it to fill pages artificially with reformulating what she had just said, this book would have come out with less than 300 pages. Now take out the ridiculous two-page format and you could write this one on 150 pages.

I have been working with vb.net casually for several years but had alot of areas I was still weak in. I purchased this book recently and it helped me to get a much better fundamental understanding of the subject. I wish I had read it first. I now have all the Murach VB.net books and they are all well written and organized and well worth their cost.

I was in several Oracle's training classes. In most classes, each takes approximately from two to five days. If you were in the class, you would get a handout book printing from Instructor's PowerPoint slide. The handout, in bullet format, covers only the closed-to-a-real application examples. It is concise. Instructor covers the slide for 30 mins. Then, he gave you many lab exercises to follow. With this method, I think you can understand the context in the short time. This book is using the same method. By pursuing this book, you do not need the real instructor. All instructor suggestions are already in the book.

At the end of each chapter, you will have a chance to modify the project that you already did in the chapter. For example, if the author shows you how to write IF statements, you will have a chance to enhance those statements to be more complex. You are also able to do extra projects that the author has not taught in the text. As a result, you can apply those skills to develop your own projects.

Another good thing about this book is that the screen captures are very clear. You can see what the points of the author. In many books, they fail to do so because readers cannot read words on those screens.

Before you decide to buy Object-Oriented Text Book, I suggest that you check the example that the book explains to you. You should buy the book that shows you examples like real world examples such as Invoice Class, or DataValidation Class. You should not buy the book that presents only Mammal class, Engine Class, or Dog Class.

However, for the price, it seems to me that this book is a little pricy. You can buy a similar book with 1,000+ pages more for 50 dollars. You may need to trade off between the price and the presentation method of the book.

I'm a software developer with several years of experience developing applications for the web. However, to my surprise, I've recently been instructed to develop a non-web, desktop application. Once I got the deer in the headlights look out of my eyes, I headed straight to the bookstore to find a book to help me make the transition. This book saved me.

Murach's Beginning Visual Basic.NET not only does a great job introducing the reader to creating Windows desktop forms and learning the VB.NET language, but it also provides thorough exposure to Visual Studio, commonly used .NET classes and the most commonly used properties and methods associated with these classes. This book also provides a great introduction to object oriented programming and how to create your own business classes. The information and exercises provide exposure to real world scenarios in bite-sized chunks that anybody can comprehend.

I know this review includes terminology that beginners might not be familiar with yet, but don't worry, this book's author doesn't expect you to have any previous experience. My experience with this book has definitely wet my appetite to check out some of Murach's other information technology publications.

Great primer for VB.NET. Fun to learn and easy to apply concepts to business models. Complex ideas developed clearly. I would suggest reading Sybex Mastering VB.NET for a deeper understanding of .NET concepts, though, as it goes into depths not covered in the Murach book. It's always good to have more than one angle on a subject.
I am not a professional programmer. I run a business that has alot of information running through it. Learning VB has given me the tools to create what I need when I need it. That saves money and allows me to be creative. I love that!

This author is TERRIBLE at trying to teach VB.NET. I don't know about his other books, but I will NEVER buy one of them again! He makes too many assumptions that you already know a lot about VB.NET. His "example" coding is horrible. I have some programming experience (although it is somewhat dated) but he gives about a paragraph or two to the topic, then writes a little piece of code, then sums it all up and expects you to be an expert at it. I need a sample of the code and how it works, not just the line it goes in. I would highly recommend you keep looking and NOT buy this terrible book!

I have been in programming business for a while, working mostly with procedural languages and somewhat with windows type programming (Access, ASP). I read reviews about this book and bought it. By now I have read half of the book and I am very pleased with it. The author presents concepts in very thoughtful understandable manner. Book has enough hands-on and examples. I rarely saw programming books where material has been presented in such orderly and logical manner. I feel like I made a real good progress. I will buy Murach ASP.NET as Anne Prince is a co-author.

This book was required for School. I had never touched VB until this class, and this book was not very helpful to me and every one else in the class. When I got to chapter 5 it felt like all I had done was type in code presented in the book. There was very little explanation as to why you were doing some things. It really appears that there was not enough room for explanation because of the layout. The class ended up buying the "Teach Yourself VB.Net in 24 hour" from Sam Publishing. The Sams book breaks the code down in a much more understanding way.

Selected this book at the bookstore after browsing all vb.net books they had. This book leaves out all the BS of programming, and stuff you have already had in every programming book at school, and gives you straight, easy to understand and follow information. Gets you going on using the Visual Studio.NET IDE for Visual Basic. Excellent code examples--gives you what you need without extra mumbo jumbo!

Very Happy!!!