Murach's Visual Basic 2008

ISBN: 978-1-890774-45-5
List: $52.50
820 pages
Anne Boehm

If you haven't tried Mike Murach's style in software books, you're in for a real treat! They have a style and format unique in the publishing world.

• The "paired page" format with the explanation on the left side and illustrations on the right ... on every page.
• Content is written by employee authors, not hired guns. The author of this latest book is Anne Boehm, who now has a substantial record of Murach books.

Murach books are for learning. They're advertised as training and reference, but I think they're really training. Although they're used in a lot of paid instructional courses, the format and clear writing make them perfect for the do-it-yourself student of programming.

This latest offering for Visual Basic 2008 is much like the VB.NET 2008 itself: an incremental upgrade, not a total rewrite. A comparison with the same book for VB.NET 2005 shows that most of the content is relatively unchanged. The chapter on LINQ, like the technology, is completely new.

Since I'm very concerned with the problem of how to write so people will understand it, the fact that this book is an upgrade should only be taken as a positive. The second version of my work is usually a lot better than the first.

If you're in the market for a book that will do the best job possible of helping you learn VB.NET, you can't do better!