This newest programming guide by bestselling author Jesse Liberty isn't your typical Visual Basic book. It's not a primer on the language, and it won't dull your brain with arguments hyping .NET either. Its goal, rather, is to make you immediately productive, creating Windows and Web applications using Visual Basic 2005 and Visual Studio 2005.

Written for VB6 and novice programmers, the book shows how Visual Basic 2005 can be used to rapidly build modern Windows and web applications.

What makes this book different is what's not included. There's no introduction to Visual Basic, no explanation of how it fits into the .NET world. Why waste time reading about something you'll learn for yourself as soon as you start creating applications? You won't even write a "Hello World" program. With Programming Visual Basic 2005 you'll get started building something meaningful, right away.

The book is divided into three parts--Building Windows Applications, Building Web Applications, and Programming with Visual Basic--each of which could be a book on its own. The author shares his thorough understanding of the subject matter through lucid explanations and intelligently designed lessons that guide you to increasing levels of expertise. By the time you've finished the book, you'll know how to program both Windows and web applications with VB 2005.

The support for this book extends beyond its covers. Jesse offers a FAQ, Errata, complete source code and a link to a free private support discussion center on his web site: LibertyAssociates.com - just click on books.

Jesse Liberty, Microsoft .NET MVP, is the best-selling author of O'Reilly Media's Programming ASP.NET and over a dozen other books on web and object-oriented programming. Jesse is a frequent contributor to many industry publications and websites, and has spoken at numerous industry events. He is a former Distinguished Software Engineer at AT&T and Vice President for technology development at CitiBank.

Jesse Liberty's books have successfully guided thousands of programmers into the world of .NET programming, and Programming Visual Basic 2005 is no exception.

Amazon.com® Reader Reviews (Ranked by Helpfulness)

Average Amazon.com® Rating:  Based on 13 Ratings

VERY VERY HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!! - 2006-05-21
Reviewer Rating:
Are you a Visual Basic programmer? If you are, then this book is for you! Author Jesse Liberty, has done an outstanding job of writing a book that makes you productive immediately to create Windows and Web applications using Visual Basic and its associated tools.

Liberty, begins by describing how to respond to events to build interactive applications. Then, the author shows you how to use drag-and-drop controls to create that connectivity, how to query with parameters, and how to build master/detail pages. He continues with a review of built-in browser controls. Next, the author discusses custom controls. Then he shows you how to use GDI+ and other techniques to draw dynamic applications. He also shows you how to detect mouse events and respond to them. Then, he shows you how to integrate legacy Com controls in a managed situation. The author continues by showing you how to create complex and sophisticated Windows applications. Next, he shows you the library of controls created for you to greatly simplify these tasks. Then, the author walks you through the controls that makes mastering pages and navigation a very easy task. He continues by showing you how to update the database and manage multiuser applications. Next, the author discusses personalization. Then, he shows you how to create web services and also how to create applications that use web services. He also takes you into some of the nooks and crannies of this tool. Next, the author provides a review of the visual basic language in detail. Then, he shows you how to use the new generic collections to create type-safe stacks, queues, and dictionaries. Finally, the author provides a slightly more formal overview of the visual basic language.

The goal of this most excellent book is to make you immediately productive, creating Windows and Web applications using Visual Basic and its associated tools. Thus, by creating applications, you will learn Visual Basic as it has evolved for .NET!

Jesse Liberty Fails to Update the Errata - 2006-06-26
Reviewer Rating:
After spending many hours trying to figure why the sample code didn't work, I found the answer buried on Jesse Liberty's message board. A fellow reader points out an error on Jan 21 and as of June 26 Jesse has yet to update his errata. Most tech books have a decent size errata and that is to be expected, but for an author to fail in his responsibility at the cost of many collective hours by his readers is extremely inconsiderate. This book is in my trash can at the moment.

Great Second VB Book - 2006-09-25
Reviewer Rating:
I have been through many VB books including expensive college texts. I immediately found this to be the best one. I picked it up at a Borders (oops...) because I was sick of ordering books online and not liking them when I finally got them in the mail. After I read the first chapter in the book store, I didn't want to wait to get started so I paid the $40.

I found that something simple like naming conventions or form design can ruin a potentially great book. Jesse Liberty uses the standard naming convention (txtName, btnSelect, etc.) and is not nearly as strict with form design as most books I have been through.

I recommend this as a second book because, though chapter 15 and 16 are superb in describing the basics, the complete beginner may be better off with a "For Dummies" book or something like that.

Some SQL knowledge also makes the book go down easier.

Not a complete transition to VB.Net - 2006-06-06
Reviewer Rating:
I absolutely love Jesse's books and articles. However, this book does not have a page dedicated to ADO.Net nor does Jesse talk about the debugging methods of VS 2005.

I understand writing a book is not easy, but I feel these are two critical components of .Net development

fun read, but slightly incomplete. - 2009-08-26
Reviewer Rating:
If you got this around the time it was published, it was gold. after 2007, probably not so much. Some of the chapters reference software that needs to be downloaded from the publisher/author's website. Can be problematic. Skill set and info is pretty darn good, though.

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