In his "supplemental" chapter on the VB language, he states that VB variables come in two types: built-in types and types you create yourself. Nearly every other book I have reviewed classifies them as "value" types (stored on the "stack") and "reference" types (stored on the "heap"). Yet, thirty pages later, with no explanation, he states that, "Visual Basic 2005 arrays are reference types, created on the heap." A student might be forgiven for asking at this point, "What's a reference type and what's the heap?" Then, forty pages later, Jesse explains value and reference types in much the same way that most books do.
I think his heart may not have been in writing Part III of the book and, in fact, the explanations of OOP and VB that he provides as boxed comments in the rest of the text are better and easier to understand anyway. Of course, experienced programmers won't be bothered by these minor problems ... but they might not be trying to learn from this book.
Fortunately, the "main" (the "non-boring") part of the book is a lot better than that. The chapter 1 example is a real, significant Windows application and it isn't "Hello World". Chapter 2 adds data using SQL Server Express and Chapter 3 starts getting into advanced controls. That's a quick pace!
Jesse's style in Part I, the Windows application, is to use the same real-world business application - a database driven system to query employee and order information - to demonstrate the techniques of Windows programming. In Part II, he selects different examples specifically designed to illustrate the different techniques to web based applications.
Downloadable code examples are available at Jesse's business web site but hadn't been added to the O'Reilly page for the book yet at the time of this review.
The publisher, O'Reilly, also deserves credit for doing a high quality job printing the book. A relatively light-weight paper stock and slightly higher density print allow a lot of information to be packed into a book that would be twice that size and weight in the format used by some other publishers. The binding lets you open the book without cracking the back. Good job, O'Reilly!
All in all, this is an excellent book that can do just what Jesse promises: make you immediately productive. You have to overlook just a few problems to get there, but I think the outstanding qualities of the book clearly outweigh them.
