Book Recommendations VB.Net

[Spydermag68]

I need a good book recommendations to learn VB.Net fast. In the past I have used Deitel & Deitel's, Java:How to Program 1 and 2 but at $75 a book it puts a big dent in my pocket book.

Thanks

 

[glugglug]

VB is EVIL. ALL variants of it (no pun intended) including .NET (another evil in and of itself). VB WILL rot your brain and teach you how NOT to think about programming.

If you are being coerced into learning VB for work, the $75 shouldn't matter to you because you should be getting reimbursed. (plus possible workman's comp for drain bramage from working with VB)

If you want to learn a visual windows programming language for yourself, I strongly recommend either Delphi or C++ Builder. Especially with a background in a nice clean language like Java. Contrary to popular myth, C++ is not hard. In fact it's far more intuitive than VB. Plus the syntax is pretty much the same as Java.

 

[bigshooter]

actually java is pretty close to c++, not the other way around

 

[Spydermag68]

I was looking for a recommendation an a VB book, not a discussion on programming languages. Real programmers use assembly! TPF RULES!

OK...now does anyone have a book recommendation?

 

[Descartes]

Originally posted by: glugglug
VB is EVIL. ALL variants of it (no pun intended) including .NET (another evil in and of itself). VB WILL rot your brain and teach you how NOT to think about programming.

If you are being coerced into learning VB for work, the $75 shouldn't matter to you because you should be getting reimbursed. (plus possible workman's comp for drain bramage from working with VB)

If you want to learn a visual windows programming language for yourself, I strongly recommend either Delphi or C++ Builder. Especially with a background in a nice clean language like Java. Contrary to popular myth, C++ is not hard. In fact it's far more intuitive than VB. Plus the syntax is pretty much the same as Java.

You really should think before you speak. You have absolutely no idea what you are talking about, that much is blatantly obvious. Unfortunately, it's usually the neophytes who learn more dogma than useful knowledge who like to disseminate ignorance to the masses.

There are so many errors riddles in your tripe that I won't even bother trying to refute each one (e.g. .NET variant of VB, Java syntax pretty much same as C++, ...).

This would be the best book after you've become familiar with the language and .NET.

I can't recommend a good general book, as I'm mostly a C#er, and you didn't tell us your background....

 

[Spydermag68]

Thanks Descartes... I have mainly coded in TPF, a mainframe assembly language and C. I have picked up C++ and Java in the last 9 months and have done some simple VS C++.

 

[Descartes]

Originally posted by: Spydermag68
Thanks Descartes... I have mainly coded in TPF, a mainframe assembly language and C. I have picked up C++ and Java in the last 9 months and have done some simple VS C++.

Might I ask why you want to learn VB.NET instead of C#? In .NET, no language is more performant than the other as they both emit IL that is JIT compiled at run-time. With that said, the only reason one would want to learn VB.NET instead of C#, or C# instead of VB.NET, is preference. Since it seems you have a Java, C, and C++ background, you would be able to pick up C# in absolutely no time (especially since you've done Java).

For C#, I recommend the following:

Programming C# by Jesse Liberty. I read most of this book a few years back (when it was in 1st edition), and it was a great way to get up to speed on the syntactical elements, features of the language, facets of .NET, etc.. It's not an exhaustive book by any means, but that's what I like about it.

Now, to get the details of .NET itself look no further than Applied .NET Framework Programming by Jeffrey Richter. Don Box's Essential .NET is also excellent.

I've read many books on .NET, but the aforementioned are my opinion of the best, with the exception of the lower-level books on things like IL (which I'd then have to recommend Inside .NET IL Assembler).

If you're still wanting to go the VB.NET route, then ignore the above.

 

[Apathetic]

I just picked up Programming Microsoft Visual Basic .NET (Core Reference) by Francesco Balena and it seems pretty good. The early chapters go over some .NET fundamentals (assemblies, etc) and then jumps into VB.NET.

I recommend going to the book store and grab a copy of all the books people recommend and then sit down at a table and look them over. See which ones cover the topics you are most interested in. If you don't care about talking with an Oracle server, obviously a book which is heavilly weighted in that area will not be of much use.

How much experience do you have programming? Do you just need a "what's different about .NET" type book or do you also need some general information about program design, etc?

Dave

 

[Apathetic]

Originally posted by: glugglug
VB is EVIL. ALL variants of it (no pun intended) including .NET (another evil in and of itself). VB WILL rot your brain and teach you how NOT to think about programming.

If you are being coerced into learning VB for work, the $75 shouldn't matter to you because you should be getting reimbursed. (plus possible workman's comp for drain bramage from working with VB)

If you want to learn a visual windows programming language for yourself, I strongly recommend either Delphi or C++ Builder. Especially with a background in a nice clean language like Java. Contrary to popular myth, C++ is not hard. In fact it's far more intuitive than VB. Plus the syntax is pretty much the same as Java.

While I agree several parts of VB suffer from severe brain damage (VB's Collections are especially bad - if you attempt to see if an item is a part of the collection and it isn't, a run-time error is generated), that doesn't mean the entire language is useless. It's great for GUIs and simplifies access to databases. Write the "pretty click-click" stuff in VB and then write the hard-core stuff in C/C++ and just link to it.

Now assembly will definately rot your brain. I've been doing that for 12 years now - but hey, I'm still normal... twitch... twitch...

Dave

 

[Descartes]

Originally posted by: Apathetic

Originally posted by: glugglug
VB is EVIL. ALL variants of it (no pun intended) including .NET (another evil in and of itself). VB WILL rot your brain and teach you how NOT to think about programming.

If you are being coerced into learning VB for work, the $75 shouldn't matter to you because you should be getting reimbursed. (plus possible workman's comp for drain bramage from working with VB)

If you want to learn a visual windows programming language for yourself, I strongly recommend either Delphi or C++ Builder. Especially with a background in a nice clean language like Java. Contrary to popular myth, C++ is not hard. In fact it's far more intuitive than VB. Plus the syntax is pretty much the same as Java.

While I agree several parts of VB suffer from severe brain damage (VB's Collections are especially bad - if you attempt to see if an item is a part of the collection and it isn't, a run-time error is generated), that doesn't mean the entire language is useless. It's great for GUIs and simplifies access to databases. Write the "pretty click-click" stuff in VB and then write the hard-core stuff in C/C++ and just link to it.

Now assembly will definately rot your brain. I've been doing that for 12 years now - but hey, I'm still normal... twitch... twitch...

Dave

To think that any language will "rot your brain" is absurd. Any quality software engineer can write quality software in any language. Granted, there may be more manifestations of syntactic salt, and it may not be as pretty, but you can still solid development practices.

VB was used *HEAVILY* in the Windows DNA "era" (I say "era", but really it wasn't that long ago, and new projects are still being implemented) as a middle-tier solution. VB was tightly coupled into the COM world, and if you knew enough about VB (user-defined interfaces for polymorphic facilities via multiple interface inheritance, for example), you could build a solid component. People who chastise VB usually know very little about it, or at least they have only seen it used as a primitive little database interface.

Know when, and when not, to use a given tool.

 

[Apathetic]

Originally posted by: Descartes

Originally posted by: Apathetic

Originally posted by: glugglug
VB is EVIL. ALL variants of it (no pun intended) including .NET (another evil in and of itself). VB WILL rot your brain and teach you how NOT to think about programming.

If you are being coerced into learning VB for work, the $75 shouldn't matter to you because you should be getting reimbursed. (plus possible workman's comp for drain bramage from working with VB)

If you want to learn a visual windows programming language for yourself, I strongly recommend either Delphi or C++ Builder. Especially with a background in a nice clean language like Java. Contrary to popular myth, C++ is not hard. In fact it's far more intuitive than VB. Plus the syntax is pretty much the same as Java.

While I agree several parts of VB suffer from severe brain damage (VB's Collections are especially bad - if you attempt to see if an item is a part of the collection and it isn't, a run-time error is generated), that doesn't mean the entire language is useless. It's great for GUIs and simplifies access to databases. Write the "pretty click-click" stuff in VB and then write the hard-core stuff in C/C++ and just link to it.

Now assembly will definately rot your brain. I've been doing that for 12 years now - but hey, I'm still normal... twitch... twitch...

Dave

To think that any language will "rot your brain" is absurd. Any quality software engineer can write quality software in any language. Granted, there may be more manifestations of syntactic salt, and it may not be as pretty, but you can still solid development practices.

VB was used *HEAVILY* in the Windows DNA "era" (I say "era", but really it wasn't that long ago, and new projects are still being implemented) as a middle-tier solution. VB was tightly coupled into the COM world, and if you knew enough about VB (user-defined interfaces for polymorphic facilities via multiple interface inheritance, for example), you could build a solid component. People who chastise VB usually know very little about it, or at least they have only seen it used as a primitive little database interface.

Know when, and when not, to use a given tool.

If you re-read my post, you'll see I agree with you (VB definately has some good uses). I was just being silly when I said "assembly will not your brain" (note the smiley and the "...but hey, I'm still normal... twitch... twitch..." comment).



Dave

 

[Shazam]

Descartes, I've heard that the MS series of books for .NET are actually quite good. Do you have an opinion on them?