Microsoft Visual Basic .NET Programmer's Cookbook

The author has that perfect mixture of good writing style and a profound knowledge of both the language and the .net architecture. I read through the book once, with a fairly shallow understanding. Now I refer to it all the time and find guidance for almost any project I am working on. His code snippets (which all work...unusual for a programming book) are instructive, well commented, and always elegeant and concise. He has a focus in his code for efficiency, but the logic is easy to follow. I only wish this author wrote the C# sister book. In fact, I would read THIS book to learn C#! BY far the best programming book out there and the standard by which all others should be judged.

Contains a LOT of recipes, however, yes, it's out-date but still some recipes works to the date

This book is like the college professor that is an expert in his field, knows everything, and can't teach worth a hoot. The book has all sorts of excellent information but is poorly written for someone who is trying to learn VB .NET. If what you're after is an excellent reference manual, this will do the trick. If you're after something that reads easily and guides you through creating VB .NET applications, I'd suggest you keep looking.

Finally, a book with one-stop shopping for VB.NET! I've read several cookbook-style programming titles in the past, and I was pleasantly surprised to find this has much more depth than I expected. It can't cover everything (.NET is huge), but every time I pick the book up I learn something new. There are so many highlights--just browse through the table of contents and you'll see what I mean! Here are some of my favorites: * Send keystrokes to another app * Create a thread-safe control wrapper * Great data-binding tips (image-to-picture box, etc.) * Factory, Registry, Singleton, Memento, and Lazy Initialization patterns * POP3, FTP, and Ping classes in the networking section * How to change a password into a salted hash for storage in a database * Use ZIP and PDF files (disclaimer: some third-party code is required, although it's free) * Manage print jobs that are underway * Get Windows accounts and roles * Do hit testing with custom graphics * Defend against SQL injection * Dynamically generate an ASP.NET graphic * Add ASP.NET controls on the fly * MAPI and MCI (unfortunately, just through the ActiveX controls) * Upload binary data with a web service * Use a web service in VB 6

For a beginner, I think it's best to get two things: A really good introductory book to learn the basics, and then a cookbook that gives code samples for a variety of tasks. Otherwise you'll beat your head against the wall trying to reinvent the wheel, every time you want to perform some common task in code. For vb.net, I'd recommend Murach's Beginning Visual Basic .Net as the introductory text (even for a non-programmer) and this book as the cookbook. This book is concise but it contains the info you want. Its problem/solution structure makes it easy to find information (much easier than digging through a typical 1,000+ page comprehensive language review). And the selection of topics/code samples is quite useful, covering a variety of common tasks. If you've learned the very basics but are struggling to write code, take a look at this book.

FYI, when using the code in Chapter 8-4, "8.4 Ping an IP Address", all seems well and you get the different ping times in your console window. However, I referenced the dll provided in the sample code in a fresh application, and used it to ping ONE ip address several times (which was a machine on my same network segment sitting about 3 feet from me) and I got the SAME EXACT responses as the sample app did, which "SUPPOSEDLY" was pinging yahoo.com, SETI.com, and the local loopback address. In fact, no matter what ip addresses I tried to ping, the ping times were always the same approximate numbers. I would say that the only explanation for this is that the generation of the numbers is hard-coded into the dll, rather than being actual ping times. I would love to hear the explanation for this...

If you're familiar with VB.Net, then this is a great book for you to learn how to add those tricky little details that can make or break the professionalism of your Applications. If you are a beginner, you may want to book mark this book and get it when you feel more comfortable, because you will need it. Although just about everything can be learned from the MSDN Library and help files that come with Visual Studio. Its hard to find what your looking for when you dont really know exactly what it is that you need. Thats where this book comes in. This book covers a vast array of possibilities, that it'll truely keep you drawn into the fascinating world of VB.Net coding, and without such a headache in research. This is a book worth having as a refernce. Note: some of the examples you may need to modify to bring from a console app to a regular windows app. Which is no big deal. Just omit "Console.Writelines" for "textboxname.text = "

As .Net matures, I expected this "cookbook" to measure up to the Culinary Institute of America's cookbook or at least to equal Julia Child's "Mastering the art of French Cooking". Instead, this book is more like a text for Betty Crocker's home-ec course - Cooking 101. I could not find a single 'recipie' not previously published in the many books that MacDonald Credits. My advice to a would-be author, keep MacDonald's format, it's very good, but climb above the basics and give us some real-world (application level) receipes.