Cut to the chase—for faster, smarter ways to start programming now!

Now you can write your own programs with Microsoft® Visual Basic® .NET—faster, smarter and better. Dive in—this friendly, high-energy guide makes it easy to learn exactly what you need. Use the numbered steps, code listings, and expert tips to accelerate your programming productivity—and move on to doing the cool things you want to do!

Amazon.com® Reader Reviews (Ranked by Helpfulness)

Average Amazon.com® Rating:  Based on 3 Ratings

Exactly what it claims to be & more - 2003-05-12
Reviewer Rating:
I am a Systems Admin who knows networking like the back of my hand and support hundreds of systems running numerous OSs. I can develop dynamic web sites using PHP & mySQL, and I use javascript. But as most of you know, those in the development community don't consider those true programming languages (since they're just scripting languages), thus it doesn't make you a true programmer. I have always been interested in 'someday' learning to program. Well, I finally decided to start the process. I first tried to tackle what language to choose. Since VB is so widespread and (enter comment here) Windows does command a very high percentage of the desktop arena, I chose VB .NET.

The problem was that I have no formal programming experience, and most books on VB .NET tried to teach you by comparing it to VB6. Also, since VB6 was not fully OO, I didn't want to learn a programming paradigm just to use it as a stepping stone to another, when the first is clearly phased out. Either that, or I would find books or online tutorials that would explain the IDE and say OK that's it. Just put your code in here and you're good to go. But what if you don't know how to code?

I needed a book that taught a technically proficient professional how to program from the ground up using the most recent version of VB without reference to other versions.

That is exactly what you get and more. It gives you everything you need from the very basics and builds on the skills you learned. It also gives great code examples then walks you through every line of code explaining exactly what it did. Finally, it offers a tutorial on the subject you just learned using the code it just explained line by line.

This is not for intermediate programmers or experienced programmers that are new to VB. It truly is what it says in the Intro of the book...

If you are an experienced PC user who's never delved into programming but now has the itch, this is the book that will get you started. It presumes you're proficient with Windows & Windows Apps but wouldn't know a line of code if it came up and bit you.

Highly recommended.

An Honest Review - 2005-07-18
Reviewer Rating:
Although I'm only 80% finished with the book, I believe I can review it now.

The reason being that the remaining chapters (9-12)
pertain to non-groundwork topics
(i.e.designing windows forms, web page programming).
Obviously an intro. to more advanced uses of programming.

The author, Jim Buyens, consistently writes in a clear, modern, and organized way.
He lives up to teaching the basics (plus techniques!).
I have only found 1 mistake in his sample code, and it was an uncritical piece.

There is even some sincere humor in chapter subtitles.
i.e.
Chapter 7 subtitle "a touch of class[*]".
*group of properties and methods.

If you buy, a real learning effort is a must.

definitely a five star!

Faster Smarter Beginning Programming (using Visual Studio) - 2007-05-22
Reviewer Rating:
While only having been through the first couple chapters, this book is written like it is referring to Microsoft Visual Studio 2005, but some of the menus referred to actually are for an earlier version of Visual Studio, so you have to do some investigation of what is available from the program that matches the text.
The first program did not work as the author predicted; I followed directions but running the program led to errors.

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Programming > Visual Basic
Visual Basic > Language Fundamentals