This is a reworking of Schneider's earlier VB book(s). It is important at the outset to grasp that this book, like his others, is written from a traditional data processing perspective (ubiquitous bank/loan account examples). Strong emphasis on structured programming is demonstrated throughout. So it's quite traditional in how it approaches topics. It has a marvellous collection of exercises both short and project based. If you can work through these, you will have a very good knowledge of traditional core programming skills. And this is the key point of the text: it is primarily about teaching you how to program using VB.net as the instruction medium and not anything else. This is no quick tips and tools book, though it obviously contains such. Secondly, it is not a how to do GUIs book. You won't find much here on building multimedia applications or graphical games. Instead, the book offers a shoehorning of masses of programming techniques into the VB.net environment. And the work is very high quality both in terms of the examples and their pedagogical value.
In terms of layout, the book is particularly good. For a start it more or less lies flat when you open it. Colour coding of programs is used, and each chaper and topic is illustrated with clearly flagged example code and displays. There is no shortage of well developed code, (though some of the examples may seem a little conservative).
The first two thirds of the book introduces a bit of history and traditional programming thinking: procedures, decision logic, loops, arrays and files. The remainder deals with controls, OO in VB.net and database access. The OO chapter uses a reasonable number of examples to convey techniques and the exercises are interesting, but it is introductory (don't expect a crash course in abstract datatypes). However the chapter has but one graphics based example which is a bit mean.
While the book has exemplary strengths over and above the majority in the field, there are a few weaknesses which indicate the need for at least one supplementary text.
In the first place, the book has nothing to say on GDI+ programming, and many will judge this oversight as a serious flaw. Secondly, the multiple document interface capacity of VB.net (changed somewhat from VB6) is not developed. Indeed with the exception of three pages on adding multiple forms (482-485), the rationale for multiwindowed displays is completely overlooked. In fairness, the book is not focused around user interface design issues (either a strength or a weakness depending on your needs).
The chapter on databases access is good but just above elementary. However, don't expect a run down on web servers and XML. These topics are not covered. Even a brief chapter on XML would not be out of place.
From a slightly more pedantic position, I am surprised that there is no general chapter on data structures. Arrays are given a very handsome chapter, and sorting a searching are developed well, but we don't explore explicitly stacks and queues. Now one of the strengths of VB.net is that stack and queue creation and manipulation are made trivial due to inbuilt functions. It would have been useful to see these in action. Moreover, trees and graphs are not covered, and that is a bit of a puzzle.
Overall the book is a superb programming text. Dated perhaps in some of its focus, but still a better introduction to programming than many notionally equivalent texts, which are perhaps more glamorous, but almost certainly less thoughtful.
