applications

The best way to learn a computer language is the same as the best way of learning a human language, you need to practice. That's why practice problems are essential to any beginner's book to any programming language. This book has BY FAR the most practice problems for the VB.net learners. It also has detailed and useful explaination of basic VB.net concepts. What you learn in this book will provide a solid framwork for more complicated VB.net subjects.

if you don't know know anything about programming, and you have to use visual basic, you should use this book. after reading it at least until chapter 8, and you want to read books like Deitel&deitel or Coding Technique, i believe you will understand it much3x better.

This book is not a good one for "Introduction" to Programming using VB. My opinion obviously, but I find the book to draw way too many assumptions about what the reader already knows about VB. Reading this text I find myself re-reading over and over again the concepts that I am supposed to learn. The author throws out several concepts, definitions and terms all within one sentence. It is difficult to digest. Have a pen ready with lots of ink- you will have to make your own notes to make sense of it. I have only read 130 pages and was forced to buy another text to fill in the gaps. Too bad- the other text is quite good (Murach's Beginning VB) but this is not the book used for my class. There are a billion examples- for me the approach that works best is type out every example and just study it with the help the other text, websites and online help. Perhaps is this is the best way to get it done- but I personally feel learning this way is too labor intensive.