I bought this book because I had taken on a new job and had 2 weeks to learn VB.Net the way I know C#.Net. This book was and still is a great asset to have for anyone looking for a quick concise guide to translate between VB.Net and C#.Net It's not a learning guide for .Net (as it states in the intro) and does not get to specifics about winforms and webforms. What it does is very effectively explain syntax differences and other caveats to be aware of between the .Net languages (I skipped over all the VB6 stuff so I can't speak to that). The charts at the beginning of every chapter are an invaluable quick reference.
If you are new to .Net, get another book to learn it effectively...if you know a .Net language and need translate your knowledge to another, then this book is a great tool to have.

Having coded in C#, and having to pick up a project all in VB.NET, which, btw, was ported from VB6, was not familiar with the synthax and conventions of the visualbasicers. My problem was mostly about the lack of knowledge on language synthax and idiom expression. Knew "how to do this and that", but didn't have the synthax on my fingertips. This book pretty much summarizes all my desires at this point: it has side by side examples in VB6, VB.NET, and C#, with a commentary on features that may be offered in one language or another, why they were offered, and within the same programming language, sometimes mentioned an alternate way of achieving the same result. For my particular situation, already knowing the .NET framework and have had some experience in it, this book proved to be extremely useful to jump into another .NET language. I think I found one incorrect statement: the book states that in .NET, Boolean and Integer are not interchangeable, which I found to be true in C#, but not in VB.NET. Also, the difference between static and shared is still confusing. Great book for those that just need a code example in front of their eyes when coding something new. And btw, nice insight on how C# picked up from VB6 the style on read-only property, while paradoxically, VB.NET did not. Also useful in the context covered by this book, are two other books, "Maximizing .NET Performance" and "Effective C#", which lists some traps that are specific to a programming language used in .NET.

Having coded in C#, and having to pick up a project all in VB.NET, which, btw, was ported from VB6, was not familiar with the synthax and conventions of the visualbasicers. My problem was mostly about the lack of knowledge on language synthax and idiom expression. Knew "how to do this and that", but didn't have the synthax on my fingertips. This book pretty much summarizes all my desires at this point: it has side by side examples in VB6, VB.NET, and C#, with a commentary on features that may be offered in one language or another, why they were offered, and within the same programming language, sometimes mentioned an alternate way of achieving the same result. For my particular situation, already knowing the .NET framework and have had some experience in it, this book proved to be extremely useful to jump into another .NET language. I think I found one incorrect statement: the book states that in .NET, Boolean and Integer are not interchangeable, which I found to be true in C#, but not in VB.NET. Also, the difference between static and shared is still confusing. Great book for those that just need a code example in front of their eyes when coding something new. And btw, nice insight on how C# picked up from VB6 the style on read-only property, while paradoxically, VB.NET did not. Also useful in the context covered by this book, are two other books, "Maximizing .NET Performance" and "Effective C#", which lists some traps that are specific to a programming language used in .NET.

I use this book a LOT. The reason I love it is because it does exactly what it was meant to do: take a starting point that I can relate to, Visual Basic 6, and cross-reference my previous knowledge to VB.NET and C#. I have not found any other book that cross-references all three languages the way this one does. For instance, if I know what command I would use in VB 6, but I'm new to C# then it's a 15 minute search to find something equivalent in MSDN. But if I pull out my trusty Translation Guide there it is in a few seconds! From there if I need more in-depth detail I can go straight to the correct article in MSDN, however in most cases it tells me everything I need to know because I already understand the concepts, I just need to know how to do the same type of task in another language. This book is absolutely invaluable to me as a reformed VB6 programmer!

Anytime I enter into the world of a new technology, I tend to inundate myself with books. I purchased many books as I prepared myself for the transition into .NET, particularly to adopting the use of C#.

While other books taught me about the ins and outs of the .NET framework, this one helped me to quickly grasp the language. It provides useful and practical examples for tasks I had long taken for granted in VB 6.0 and prior. In fact, the essense of the book is all about bridging one's understanding from the "old way" of coding to the "new way" and it does so quite well.

Many times I need to quickly recall syntax. The book is well organized and I can almost always find what I'm looking for in a minute. Other books leave me searching or even wondering where that one nugget of truth that I learned last month (but can only vaguely recall this month) must be.

This book is perfect for the person who wants to learn the language syntax (VB or C#) from practical patterns and examples.

Anytime I enter into the world of a new technology, I tend to inundate myself with books. I purchased many books as I prepared myself for the transition into .NET, particularly to adopting the use of C#.

While other books taught me about the ins and outs of the .NET framework, this one helped me to quickly grasp the language. It provides useful and practical examples for tasks I had long taken for granted in VB 6.0 and prior. In fact, the essense of the book is all about bridging one's understanding from the "old way" of coding to the "new way" and it does so quite well.

Many times I need to quickly recall syntax. The book is well organized and I can almost always find what I'm looking for in a minute. Other books leave me searching or even wondering where that one nugget of truth that I learned last month (but can only vaguely recall this month) must be.

This book is perfect for the person who wants to learn the language syntax (VB or C#) from practical patterns and examples.

This book ignores major features of the .Net Architecture, and barely acknowledges ASP. It is as if the author has heard about the framework secondhand.

If you're a programmer, this book wouldn't teach you much except serve as a language reference when you are working on a specific item. If you are looking for a more solid book on reference, go for those that covers from A - Z (eg. Core Reference). If you want to convert from a older version (eg. VB6), this book will only help you in the language part as it doesn't cover other essential elements such as the new IDE, or distribution, or framework aspects.

I don't think you will use this book to decide which language you want to migrate to in .NET. It's not really helpful in that sense and you'd probably best be sticking with the language you are most comfortable with. I was using VB6 and because of the lack of necessary details, I find it very difficult to move up to VB.NET until I got another complete reference book. However, if you already know your way around .NET, this book would help you much.

Also, there are many examples which is good but it does take up much pages here. I wish this book could be thicker. There could be really much room for improvement.

If you're like me and you learn best from example, you'll find this text--it's riddled with examples--a terrific choice.

I recently began a new software development project that will take about a year to complete. I wanted to ramp up on the .NET platform since I believe it a vast (vast is too little a word in this case) improvement over the platforms of yesteryear. I browsed Amazon and ordered a variety of titles with which to equip myself; some of the titles more advanced in nature than this one.

The box of goodies arrived and I began to assimilate. I went for "Applied Microsoft .NET Framework Programming" straight off and found it to be informative but overly so. Some of the concepts being so fresh that I had no relational peg from which to hang them. The nitty-gritties were deeper than necessary for transition into .NET. I typically learn in an incremental fashion: first give me something that shows me the basics at 20,000 feet so I can begin creating my "relational pegs" from which to hang the more advanced notions as I read additional tomes.

I've found "The .NET Languages" to be one of the essential books I needed (and you'll need) in my toolbox. It's no mere translation guide, it's exactly what you need to absorb the basics if you're already versed in one of it's three languages (VB 6.0, VB.NET, and C#). I came from a primarily VB 6.0 background, and I've been learning both C# and VB.NET. This book is amazing at quickly helping me to grasp the two newer languages as the majority of it consists of side-by-side example-code comparisons in the 3 languages. Understand, it's not a standalone means of breaking into .NET, you'll need more meat, but this is one excellent appetizer. It also serves as a quick syntax reference or, as it's title suggests, a basis for translating code between languages.

As I moved from theory into actual design and then development, I found .NET to be a different monster than I had encountered in my past 10 years experience. At first, my impression and my fear was that I'd have to learn so many concepts that I'd be dizzy before I could even start programming. Yes, there was/is a lot to learn, but you can begin developing more quickly than you might expect. As I said, I started with the .NET Framework Programming book which, in my opinion, although I thought it would be an excellent starting point, was not. It only served to overwhelm me with some complexities (not that the entire book is complex) that I was able to better learn after I had my foundation.

Dig into the nitty-gritties later. How do you know, in the computer profession, that you're equipped and ready to begin creating production-level systems? It seems you're only as ready as you are, because you could always know more. (Why God didn't make a 32-hour day exception for computer professionals I'll never know!) How many times--if you're of the variety who undergoes continuing self-education--are you reflecting on past designs and implementations with new enlightenment and the feeling that you could do it twice as good now.

In my opinion, if you're moving into .NET, take the incremental approach. This book along with Wrox's "Beginning C#" and "ADO.NET" were excellent starting points for me.

It is fun to skim through the first chapters of this book. It gives you a nice and concise overview of what changed from VB6 to VB.Net and C#.
The later chapters are still interesting. Anyhow they are more about the classes in the libraries. Here sometimes there is no comparison to VB6 (ADO.Net) and also the differences between VB and C# are marginal only. The overview itself is to the point refreshing and helpful.
To read this book a good familiarity with VB6 or Java is mandatory. Also the author will not teach you any OO or DB basics.

As an author who provides all our code examples in both C# and VB.NET, this book is indispensable. Whenever I have a question about how to express some code in one language or the other, it provides the concise information I need. I highly recommend it.

As the author, I wanted to let you know that this book was written with .NET Release Candidate 1. Now that .NET Final has been released, I recompiled all the code and it is 100% compatible. As a result, this is the only edition being printed for VS.NET. You can download Chapter 2 from my website. Thanks to everyone for the positive emails.