The main purpose of this book is for the educational sector.  Fortunately for me, I have taught Visual Basic and VB.NET 1.x to students at a local community college before.  With my experience I can say that this book definitely follows its main purpose.  Putting education aside, this is a great book for developers looking to broaden their knowledge of Visual Basic.  Paul and Harvey really go in depth to talk about the various areas of development.  Some of the key areas that are missed in many books include the emphasis on classes and objects, inheritance, polymorphism, multithreading and networking.  Many VB books that I have used talk about basic programming techniques and then jump into advanced topics without a smooth transition.  This book does not do that.