This book is a great reference and starter book for any developer wishing to learn Visual Basic .NET. The book covers simple to more complex usage and how and what each type of element of the language is used. It's a great overview for the beginner or for migrating from Visual Basic Classic (VB6). You learn how to declare and work with all the different language elements, and it offers concise information as to what each element does. This book is a must have for anyone learning Visual Basic or migrating.

The most useful aspect of this book is the little notes spread throughout it. Some, such as "Style," go into the proper style of writing code; others, like "Compatibility," give information on using the .NET Framework classes in lieu of the VB6 functions and techniques. Then there are the "Notes" bits that give you more facts on the information discussed. There are also "Advanced" boxes that tell you more about a specific topic, and you will also find the "Design" boxes useful in understanding the purpose of certain design decisions.

I found the use of the keywords shown above to be much easier to read and understand than other publishers that I have read who put icons to represent a type of note. The use of plain English language as noted above is, in my opinion, preferred.

I have only two concerns with the book.  The first is that it doesn't go into object-oriented programming (OOP) theory or best practices and patterns. Many of the books in my collection assume that you already know OOP theory. I find it hard to believe that any book on Visual Basic .NET that is designed to help a newbie or migrating developer (from VB6) doesn't have some discussion on OOP. I have found that if you have a good understanding or, rather, a correct understanding of OOP, it makes learning any language that employs OOP techniques much easier to learn. To discuss OOP in the context of the language makes it even easier. Many OOP books tend to be dry and try to demonstrate OOP in graphs and flow charts or they go into C++ as a lowest-common-denominator language.

My other concern is that the book doesn't go into much detail on how to make Common Language Specification (CLS)-compliant components that will work throughout the .NET Framework with other languages, such as C#. There is an attribute called "CLSCompliant" that will help make sure your class is CLS compliant. This isn't an issue if you are not building components to be consumed by third parties and are not working with multiple developers in multiple .NET languages; however, a healthy discussion regarding what works and doesn't work would have been a nice tool to have.

In short, this book, written by a very qualified author, is easy to read and comprehend and, in my opinion, makes a great reference book for even the advanced developer.