James Foxall
May, 2008
ISBN: 978-0672329845
This new member of the "24 Hours" series from Sams marches through Visual Basic like clockwork. It's a great introduction for anyone who hasn't programmed before and it would work well as the text for a beginning programming class. Experienced programmers will find that there isn't much here for them. The new features in VB 2008 are largely missing as well.
The 24 Hours series and author James Foxall
Sams has been publishing bestselling technical books for "working programmers, developers, and systems administrators" for many years. So you have the assurance of "brand name" quality standing behind them. The "24 Hours" series is actually a method of providing 24 fast chapters in one volume. If you want to march through a course on Visual Basic .NET with premeasured jolts of learning, this book does just that.
James Foxall has just the right qualifications to get the subject across. As a working programmer himself, he understands what programmers need to know. And this isn't his first book. He has the experience to get his subject across as well as the experience to know the subject.
If you're looking for more advanced information about VB.NET 2008, however, this book probably isn't what you need. For example, the unique new features of Framework 3.5 and VB.NET 2008 are nearly all missing.
What you get
Programming books are seldom "just books" today. This one includes just about everything you might ask for.
- A DVD-ROM from Microsoft with Visual Basic 2008 Express Edition and five other free "Express Edition" systems.
- A dedicated web page at Informit.com where all the example code in the book can be downloaded. I looked for the promised list of "updates and corrections" but I couldn't find one. (I guess the book is completely error free!)
- Links to Safari, the online book service, where ebook editions of this and other books can be found, as well as links for corporate, academic, and employee purchases, and international buying options.
Registration is required before the "bonus material" can be accessed. (Note to Sams: Like a lot of systems, this one lets you have your password sent to an email address. But this one lets you send it to any email address. Real secure, Sams! Why have a password?)
There is also a handy quiz and extra workshop problems at the end of each "hour" chapter. This book would be a very good basis for an in-person programming course.
In addition, Foxall has coded all of the examples using VB.NET 2008 Express to ensure that you won't get "stuck" on an example because he uses an advanced feature that is only available in the high priced versions.
At 32 pages, the index is complete and easy to use. Illustrations are all black-and-white but they compliment the text very well and add to the learning experience. The text is 516 pages long ... about medium sized.
How the book is written
People with little programming should be able to pick up this book and run with it. Foxall does a great job of adding comments and notes that both make the text easier to read and fill out background knowledge programmers need. Even the Visual Basic "form" is explained, although if's been in every version of VB from the beginning.
Foxall is big on numbered steps to do things. This is a condensed version from the book (the real thing takes most of a page) to illustrate how to code one example program:
- Locate the Picture Viewer program ...
- Open the Picture Viewer project ...
- Select the Picture Viewer project item in the Solution Explorer ...
But you can still learn new tricks. In all the time I have been using Visual Studio, I have failed to notice that when you click the Toolbox tab, it stays open until you click another window.
Some books are advertized as replacements for the manual that you don't get today. This book could be one. For example, one chapter explains "If-Then-Else" coding. Code for basic components like the TextBox, ListBox, and Label is explained. The advantage that this book has over the VB.NET "Help" system is Foxall's much clearer writing and explantions. After reading several pages of the "Help" system, you often ask yourself, "What are they talking about?" That never happens with this book.
What you don't get
When I read about clicking the Toolbox tab above, I wondered why Foxall never explained "pinning" the Toolbox (the technique I use) at the same time. The book is easier to read because confusing options and duplicated techniques are not included, but if you're looking for more than one way, it usually isn't here.
Another case of "why didn't he mention that" came to mind when code to quit out of an application was explained. Foxall showed how to "Close" the main form to end the application and he explained that very well. But why not also show the "End" statement to reinforce the idea that there is more than one way to do things?
This book doesn't cover a lot of in-depth technical information, or explanations of the new and unique features of Framework 3.5 and VB.NET 2008. LINQ technology is missing and XML isn't mentioned either.
online references are also missing. Although the book has the welcome DVD-ROM of "Express Edition" software, Foxall might have mentioned how Express Editions can be downloaded free at Microsoft or that many students can get the Professionl version free too.
The author admits that object oriented programming isn't covered completely: "In truth, these object oriented features of Visual Basic are exciting but they're far beyond this hour (that is, "chapter") or the last hour for that matter." But what he does have is very good. He doesn't explain polymorphism and encapsulation, but he does explain properties and methods. An entire chapter, maybe two, are focused on how these essentially "OOP" features work.
