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Sams Teach Yourself .NET Windows Forms in 21 Days Review by Robert L. Cochran
Typos, Missing Code, Poor Author/Publisher Support
I'm currently working my way through Day 3 of this book. On the good side, I am producing working Windows Forms using the .NET Framework SDK and this book. I'm generally able to follow the text and the exercises. My forms are on the simple side, of course, and follow the book examples, but I feel I am progressing well.
On the bad side, the book has numerous typos to this point (Day 3). The downloaded code does not have some image files such as .ico and .bmp files crucial to one of the Day 3 exercises. Also some code written in vb.net in the book is provided as C# in the downloaded code. Some downloaded code seem missing entirely. A bad omen for the remaining days. I visited the author's web site and emailed him a question. So far he has not answered. I used the publisher's web site "Contact Us" page to let them know the downloaded code is missing some files, and got a response that must have been sent by an email robot -- it didn't at all speak to my concern. There is no published errata on either the publisher's or author's web sites.
I admit that I am getting some Windows Forms juice out of this particular fruit. I don't know how intelligible coming chapters will be. But the very poor product support means that if you buy this book and have a question or concern you are out of luck. Good technical writers are proud of their books and respond to reader questions. Some are also extremely active in mailing list forums. Good publishers like O'Reilly respond to readers with replies that speak to the questions being posed.
I have a tough time reccomending this book. You might do better elsewhere. Maybe that Windows Forms title offered by the Manning publishing house will be a help? I don't know.