Concurrance: This Book Bites!

1) Assumption of mastery of OO concepts despite fact that many developers may *not* be coming to VB2K5 from, say, Java... Given that Microsoft is famously Balkanized internally and regards VB programmers as beloved-but-second-class, you'd think the approach and assumptions would be different.

Also, as per point #4 (below), given "conceptual" orientation of the book, you'd think more weight would be given to clarity and depth of expression for actual underlying concepts (as opposed to, say, simply how things differ from the last version of ASP, or whatever).

2) Disturbingly self-congratulatory: "Gee, the whizzes at Microsoft have really topped themselves with [whatever whacky feature]!"

3) Obtuse references to difficulties of the environment: "Sure there are a kabillion esoterically-organized classes in the Base Library. Now that's not a problem because we've got the 'my' object!"

4) "Walkthroughs" rather than exercises. Code examples are "representative" rather than runnable.

You can't appeal to everyone all the time. However, this book will appeal to no one.

Other Reviews

• Readable
• Introducing Microsoft Visual Basic 2005 for Developers
• Concurrance: This Book Bites!
• Much Ado About Nothing
• A new low for MS Press