The VB3 and VB4 versions of this book were amazing in their days, both of them covered graphics and imaging like no other. Plus, the security system in the old versions was devious and top notch. (Those were the days when security wasn't a big deal ... but the code made hitting today's needs simple).

Though I moved almost exclusively to VB.Net a few years ago I kept both of the older and very beat-up versions on my shelf out of respect and appreciation AND because even in .Net much of the traditional Win32 Imaging code still comes in very handy via PInvoke and can beat GDI+ in certain areas.

I swore that I would not buy any new VB books until VB8/VS2005 was released but when I saw the VB.Net version on the shelf at Frys I bought it without any hesitation. These gentlemen know the VB developer and know what to write and how to write for us.

I've just spent a few hours with my copy and found that it was a great choice. It may not be the Bible that Balena's "Programming Microsoft Visual Basic .NET"
is but as wide-ranging handbooks go it will, like it's earlier versions, become a good friend for fast-grab reminders of in-the-trenches VB development topics.

I'm a long-time Powerbuilder developer, used to the logical object model of that tool, and have been working with Visual Studio for about a week. I became >>frustrated<< that I couldn't find concise and useful documentation about the .NET object model. (And I popped for the whole MSDN Professional license, darn it, with 12 DVDs and more coming all the time.) I began searching the related literature. God bless America and the aftermarket writers. I read the first chapter of this book, "Understanding the .NET framework", and, well, this is precisely what I needed. I have a much stronger grasp of the framework, and it's strengths... and the MS documentation and it's weaknesses. The book is not only teaching me the fundamentals of the framework, it's teaching me how to corral the MS documentation to learn further.

I have no idea (yet) what the rest of this book contains. But without reading past chap. 1, I can tell you that the book has already paid me back.

Don't buy this book if you've never used Visual Basic before because it won't teach you how to program. That said, it does fill in a lot of holes left by other books. One of the chapters that I really liked was the one on debugging. Most books don't discuss this topic and you just can't get the whole picture out of articles in magazines. This book puts the whole issue into perspective.

I also appreciated the author's coverage of unique topics. For example, Chapter 4 discusses how to work with Microsoft Office. I haven't seen any other book that really discusses this issue, yet it's something that's very practical to know.

There are other books on the market that provide great technical details, but they can put you to sleep. The authors don't crack jokes on every page, but the writing is interesting and I found the annecodotes they did provide kept the discussion lively. As an example, I went to look for one topic and only intended to spend a few moments on it. About 45 minutes later I found I had read well past the first topic because the authors present information in such a good way.

This is the book to get if you already know how to use VB and really want to learn how to get some work done. While I wouldn't say it covers every topic, the topics it does cover are very practical and useful.

I just picked up a copy of this book and was really surprised. Many books seem geared toward advanced development, but often fall short. This one certainly didn't.

there are a lot of cool things covered here, but the two most striking ones are the coverage of Message Queues and Security.

I just got into advanced messaging and there's not a lot of documentation out there. If you want to learn it, you used to have to stumble around until you got it right. Their coverage of the subject changes all of that. It explains messaging in depth and has many practical exapmles. In addition, it walks you through many of the common 'gotchas' you'll encounter when developing message based apps.

Another great area is security. I know in my experience, I was too busy learning .NET to really focus on security. That's like being in too much of a hurry to put gas in your car. i wish I would have realized this earlier. They discuss just about every practical aspect of security and have a lot of great examples as well.

These are my two favorite parts of the book, but there are many more. They explain Regular Expression for example and have tons of useful examples in it. They have a great GREP utility example that just about any developer will really enjoy.

I've bought Petroutsos' other book and really enjoyed it...and history repeated itself with this one.