Customer Reviews
An excellent reference - By: Phil Stapleton, 01 Nov 2008 
This is an excellet reference to have by the keyboard. It has a great index & the samples are clear & comprehensive. It & its predecessor (VB 2007, by the same author) were my only reference material as I progressed from VB6 through simple .net apps to full blown client/server apps.
It is clear, comprehensive & easy to read.
Get up to date with VB 2008 - By: Mr. Michael Pe Griffiths, 29 May 2008 I have been involved with Visual Basic since the first versions & VB development has been the larger part of my professional life since VB3. The .NET Framework now represents the leading edge for Windows developers & Visual Basic 2008 is the richest & most productive .NET language.
This book (like the othersin the Programmer's Reference series by Wrox ) is intended to be read by programmers looking to update their knowledge or transfer their skills from other environments. A particularly enthusiastic beginner could probably use this book & the accompanying code samples (available on line) as an introductory text but space is not wasted on basic programming concepts.
This book wisely sticks to mainstream programming by first covering this latest release of the Integrated Development Environment (IDE) & then largely concentrating on Windows Forms development & VB language elements - backed up by an effective treatment of the mysteries of .NET printing & a very important section on graphics. Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) is well introduced butin reality needs a book of it's own to coverin any real depth. Anyone looking to develop ASP.NET web sites will need to find an alternative text although newcomers to VB would not be wasting their timein learning the intricacies of the language here before proceeding to a specialised book on that topic.
For those looking to get to grips with the latestin VB there are chapters on Generics & LINQ together with sections on the latest addition to error handling, new language syntax such as the ternary If() , Lambda functions, anonymous types, nullable types, operator overloading & extension methods.
The style of the book is involving yet authoritative. Rod Stephens has clearly thought through each language & framework feature & has provide considered views on their application & utility. It seems to me that where he offers advice it is based upon personal experience tackling real world problems.
The book ends with what is nowadays a customary lengthy section of appendices butin this instance they represent a genuinely useful quick reference as the author has been selective with regard to content & perceptivein his commentaries.
The author remarksin the introduction that it was possible for someone to know all there was to know about VB3. It was just also about possible to know all of VB6. However, VB.NET 2008 is altogether more vast & it is exceedingly difficult to define the point where the language ends & the .NET Framework begins. This book is a great foundation for anyone looking to explore the rich functionality of the .NET development environment & for those seeking to get bang up to date with Visual Basic.
Excellent VB 2008 introduction - By: W. Roberts, 22 Mar 2008 An excellent introduction to the new Visual Studio 2008. Plenty of code examples available for download from the book's website as well. The appendicesin particular are very good for reference - often a lot easier & quicker than using the VS help files, which can be quite slow & difficult to find what you want.
I've been using VB.Net since the version 1 beta release, & so know it quite well, but there's still a lot of stuff coveredin the book that I either didn't know or had forgotten about. Allin all, well worth the money, & should be a useful reference for a few years to come.
And as a bonus, it also increases your upper-body strength as well - quite large & heavy!
