BOOK REVIEW

Book Title:  Visual C# .NET: A Guide for VB6 Developers

Wrox Press Ltd.

Author(s) : Marco Bellinaso etc.

ISBN: 1861007175 

 

Category

Rating

LEGEND:

5=Excellent

4=Good

3=Standard

2=Fair

1=Poor

 

Overall recommendation

4

Quality of organization

4

Easy to read and navigate

4

Sufficient quantity of examples

4

Examples are error free

3

Reuse for reference

3

Quality of index

4

 

Summary Review 

 An adequate introductory on C# for Visual Basic Programmers who are new to C# and the .NET framework, it is organized around several practical applications.  The book frequently comparies features between VB6 and C# which make the transition easier.

 

Started with a brief introduction of the .NET framework, C# language features and Visual Studio NET common tools, the book leads you directly into building a Windows applications - the SuperMind and the SweepCSharp games.  It's fun be able to code  functional games early on.

 

Through the BookReview Manager project, the book effectively introduces the use of some common Windows Forms controls (such as TreeView control, ComboBox , Context Menu, DateTimePicker), existing ActiveX controls (e.g. Web Browser, MAPI controls), the creation of custom controls and data-binding at design time.

 

For VB programmers who write mainly 2-tier Client-Server applications which consist of forms that collect user data and also connect to SQL Server databases, the book will guide them into designing 3-tier applications through the KnnwledgeBase project, in which database access via ADO.NET is well covered.

 

The book sticks to its hands-on approach to the end  by creating a setup program for the SweepCSharp game.

 

Due to it's introductory nature, the book leaves out some advanced topics such graphics, multi-threading, object serialization, reflection. 

 

Detailed Comments 

 The book does not cover debugging tools and debugging related windows which I think are very important in .NET development.      

 

Reviewer:

Timothy Deng

Date:

9/17/2002