Murach's Visual Basic 2005

Finally Published!
The Murach book for VB.NET 2005

Regular readers of this site know that I'm a fan of Mike Murach's books for programming. They have a style and format unique in the publishing world. And besides, how could you not like a guy who wears a plaid shirt in his publicity photo?

With that in mind, I have been waiting (and waiting and waiting) for Murach to finally publish their book on VB.NET 2005. (It seems that virtually all of the rest of the publishers have made it into print with their own VB.NET 2005 already.) Well ... the wait is over and I wanted to let About Visual Basic readers know that Murach's Visual Basic 2005 has just hit the shelf. (I received my copy this very day!) The ISBN's are: ISBN-10: 1-890774-38-3, ISBN-13: 978-1-890774-38-7.

Although I cover Murach's publishing philosophy more thoroughly in the article linked above, the thumbnail view is that Murach is one of the last of the independent publishers with a clear focus of only publishing "professional programming books" in a "paired page" format written by employee authors. In this case, the named author is Anne Boehm, a long time Murach employee with many Murach books to her credit.

If you're considering this book, be aware of the intended audience. This is a book for learning, starting pretty close to the beginning. If you don't have much programming experience (But you would like to!), this book is for you! There is really no better pure tutorial book out there anywhere. But if you're an experienced programmer and you need something to clear up the dark corners where Microsoft's MSDN articles leave you gasping for air ... ummmm ... maybe one of the others. For example, I looked up "attributes" just to see how they treat that topic. (Click this link for my own contribution to the literature on VB.NET attributes.) They cover as much about XML attributes as a VB programmer needs to know. But they don't mention the more advanced idea of VB.NET attributes.

Bottom line ... if you're in the target audience, this is a "best of breed" book. You won't be sorry.