Book Review - Microsoft Visual Basic .NET Programmer's Cookbook A Must Have Book by Les Smith

For years, I have wanted to write a book on practical applications of objects, provided by the VB6 Runtime.  Since Visual Studio .NET was released, I have wanted to write a book on the myriad of objects provided by the .NET Framework.  I have long felt that the developer, who is new to Visual Studio .NET, whether he or she decides to use VB.NET or C# (CSharp), is faced with a cornucopia of objects, many of which they could use, if they had some idea of what they were and what they did.  

In Matthew MacDonald's Microsoft Visual Basic .NET Programmer's Cookbook, I find that Matt has done what I always wanted to do.  He basically has covered an abundance of Visual Studio NET Framework objects, describing their usage with what he calls recipes.  

I believe it to be the best book that I have seen for covering a multitude of objects within the .NET Framework.  He gives a 1-2 page recipe for each object, suggesting a use for, and showing the use of, the objects to solve the problems that developers meet every working day.

The book has been invaluable to me, in exposing objects that I never knew were there.  Prior to obtaining his book, and having developed extensively for close to 10 years in the various versions of classic Visual Basic, including three years in VB6, I coded in Visual Studio NET, as if I was still using VB6.

In several issues of Visual Studio Magazine, there have been calls for a simplified version of Visual Studio .NET that would allow the common Visual Basic developer to get initiated to VB.NET, without being overwhelmed by the complexity of this new Visual Basic.  In fact, at least one well known author said in one of his early books on the subject, "They've broken VB!"  Although he said this with tongue in cheek, I have to admit that I felt that same thing when I looked at Beta 1 of VB.NET.

In light of the fact that adoption of VB.NET has not taken place at the pace at which Microsoft had hoped for, something is need to get the masses of Visual Basic programmers over the fear of VB.NET.

For this and many other reasons, I highly recommend Matt's book for the VB6 programmer who is trying to get past the basics of VB.NET.  Beyond that, it will introduce you to the plethora of objects in the NET Framework.  From that standpoint, C# developers, especially those new to the .NET Framework will benefit from this book, even though the code is in VB.NET.  Matthew also has a C# version of the book, C# Programmer's Cookbook.

If you are looking for a book that will introduce you a variety of the NET Framework objects, including ADO.NET, which is a huge departure from classic ADO, this is the book for you!  I give it a ***** rating.  You can find further information about this great book at Microsoft Press.