Murach's Visual Basic 2008

Murach's Visual Basic 2008
Authors
Anne Boehm
ISBN
1890774456
Published
18 Feb 2008
Purchase online
amazon.com

Whether youÕre new to Visual Basic or youÕre upgrading to VB 2008 from an earlier version, this new edition of MurachÕs core VB book shows you how to develop the kind of bullet-proof Windows Forms applications that businesses rely on. Along the way, youÕll learn how to build database applications faster than ever by using RAD features like data sources and the DataGridView control.

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  1. Editorial Reviews
  2. Customer Reviews

Customer Reviews

Bob Lipscomb said
This is my first Murach book, but it won't be the last. I like the format of the "facing page" approach - the learning content is covered on the left-hand page, and the real-world example (including screen shots, sample code, etc.) is on the right-hand facing page. Also, the end of chapter problems step you through the process of re-creating much of the content covered in the chapter.

I have found the writing to be very clear, and extremely well proof-read. I have WAY too many similar books on my shelf that were riddled with mistakes (either typographical or content). I also had reason to contact Murach's customer service (via e-mail) and received prompt and courteous replies - they went "above and beyond" to address my concern (even though it was not really their problem).

The only reason I didn't give this a five-star rating is that sometimes they use the facing-page format to teach a little bit too much by example, when more detail on the "teaching" page would have worked better. Regardless, I would enthusiastically recommend this book to anyone looking to learn VB 2008.

Halle said
I purchased this book for a university course in Visual Basic 2008. The book that came with the course was a bit too basic compared to the projects which the course required. I saw that this book is highly rated so I purchased it for my course. From Chapter 1 to 3 "Introduction to VB Programming", it seems very straight forward and great for beginners. Once it gets into Chapter 5 and on, it seems as if it making reference to coding which the book has not yet covered. It's now as if this reading is for someone with prior programming experience. The book is broken into sections. One section is called "The Visual Basic language Essentials" which covers chapters 2 all the way to Chapter 12. I get the impression that you would have to have read all ten chapters for a full grasp of the complete essentials, you can't just read one chapter and fully understand what that one chapter is saying. You must read all chapters of the section to fully understand it. This isn't really a surprise as most programming books are this same way. When you're in a university course, time is not on your side for all that reading.

As a person who is entirely new to VB.Net, I feel that I need to cover that basic book from front to end before going into this book for an upcoming advanced course in application design. As far the applications the book presents, they are great to learn from because they are based on real world application. Not a bunch of "Hello World" programs. That is a big plus for me when using any programming book, Real World Applications. I will still give the book a five star review because of what information I was able to follow, was very helpful for a beginner. The after chapter exercises are excellent for understanding what you just studied through the chapters. The book's information is superb but again it seems to be for intermediate to advanced users. If I had this book six months prior to the course starting, it would have been perfect.

TBITES said
I think one could gain good knowlege from reading end to end but for quick how to something it is hard to find complete code.

for example simple file input and output for a text file

again books get to wordy..
I found this tutorial this guy does in England
I am getting it to help me in my vb.net class
[...]

I am getting his c# book too.
I first thought this books was great but after reading it and see that you need to read end to end to really grasp it. I just need to find how to snippets

this book is okay... I love the 24 hour series books by greg perry
and am going to get this guys pdf book because I need basics how to before I get heavey into classes. vb.net to do anything with power you have to know classes
of which I need tons ofhelp on. else if you know classes and OOP well.
then this book will be great for you.

Almoctar Djibo said
The service was very good, I am looking to buy books from you in the future!

Timothy P. Utley said
I have not finished the book as yet, but i can say that this book covers all the material you will need to be proficient as a VB programmer. You will not be an expert when you finish, but you'll be able to hold your own.

I am an electrical controls engineer working in manufacturing. I am in the middle of reprogramming many of our function in VB. My background in is C++, so I needed to get up to speed quickly. I have made it through the majority of this book's chapters easily understanding the material.

While this book is a little light on the technical aspects of upper level interface programming (that is, it does not delve heavily into high end interface functions such as SQL and OBDC), it covers enough of thier aplication to allow you to understand the basics. If you need a deeper understanding of VB applications such as those mentioned, this is not the book for you.

That being said, I have managed to rewrite an extensive amount of the code (a few thousand lines including some SQL apps.) without too many problems that I needed additional help with.

Murach takes a unique approach to information dissimination. On each pair of pages, one discusses the uses of that chapter's applications, i.e. do-while loops, function calls, while the opposite page gives brief examples. The examples are, for the most part, helpful as opposed to completely useless as I have found in other texts.

An additional feature of this book that I personally found to be very helpfull was actually USING the code to modify examples provided by download from Murach. The examples build upon themslves providing some insight into how to code effectively.

I can safely say tjat this is a very good way to learn VB. I am very pleased with my progress and expect to be even more proficient after I have finished the last few chapters.

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