Visual Studio 2008 All-In-One Desk Reference For Dummies (For Dummies (Computer/Tech))
by Rick Leinecker, Vanessa L. Williams
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Book Summary Information
Author: Rick Leinecker, Vanessa L. WilliamsEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 2008-04-07
ISBN: 0470191082
Number of pages: 816
Publisher: For Dummies
Book Reviews of Visual Studio 2008 All-In-One Desk Reference For Dummies (For Dummies (Computer/Tech))
Book Review: Decent Overview but Light On Details
Summary: 3 Stars
Many people like the style of the "Dummies" books, but most will find this one tries to cover too much. It aspires to be the Swiss Army Knife of anything you could want to do with Visual Studio but that would take 5000 pages so it falls well short.
VS 2008 for Dummies is arranged into 7 "mini books" (not 6 as the cover artwork here on Amazon shows). And while each book has some great information, it typically covers too little to do much real development. Overall, it's biased towards web development (asp.net) using databases but also includes desktop applications, smart phone apps, deployment, unit testing, extending Visual Studio, etc. Unfortunately, unless you just want an overview, most of the mini-book topics really needs its own book.
There's a reason most beginning books on say just C# or Visual Basic are around 1000 pages. This book tries to cover both languages in only 163 pages.
Trying to cover so much information with relatively few pages creates problems. For example, Book 5 is titled Coding. Likely to save space, C# and Visual Basic examples and descriptions are intermixed on nearly every page. So the C# programmer is confused by all the Visual Basic examples and text, and visa versa. It's far from ideal unless you really do want to learn two complex programming languages at once, which seems like a bad idea for a beginning programmer buying an intro "Dummy" book.
So few pages per topic means a lot of important things are not covered at all. If you want to go much past useless "Hello World!" applications, a lot of what you'll likely need is just plain missing--i.e. basic file I/O using FileStream, ReadStream, etc. Many windows forms controls and other common .NET resources are also not covered.
I can imagine a few sorts of people for who might want to buy this book. The first is someone who wants an overview of the capabilities of VS 2008 but doesn't need to actually develop anything. An example might be someone managing a group of developers using VS 2008.
Another target audience might be experienced developers coming from a different or older development environment (such as Linux/Eclipse, VB 6.0, etc.) who only want to get up to speed on VS 2008. They would still likeley need to know (or buy another book on) the current .NET framework, however.
If someone just wants to play around and develop a few "Hello World!" examples, this book will get them there. In the "Dummies" tradition, it holds your hand fairly well through the basics.
If you're the sort of person who likes to read 2 or 3 different books on the same topic, this book may also prove useful. Visual Studio 2008 is a very complex product and this book presents some good information I've not seen elsewhere. And it presents information found in other books in new ways.
If you want to do some serious application or web development you either already need to know what you're doing, or you'll almost certainly need another book that covers your particular development area in more detail. This book will not, for example, teach you object oriented programming, or the full syntax of Visual Basic, ASP.NET or C#. It also doesn't cover the .NET framework and libraries in sufficient detail to do much more than play around.
In summary it's a useful overview, but unless that's all you need, you're probably better off with a book that targets the particular area of Visual Studio development you're most interested in. Many beginning books on C#, Visual Basic, ASP.NET, etc. do a good job of also covering Visual Studio 2008. So if you only want to buy one book, this might not be the best choice.
Summary of Visual Studio 2008 All-In-One Desk Reference For Dummies (For Dummies (Computer/Tech))
Visual Studio 2008 is packed with features that help you create better software and do it with less repetition and drudgery. Visual Studio 2008 All-In-One Desk Reference For Dummies shows you how to make the most of this cool suite of tools! It's all here!This comprehensive, seven-books-in-one guide gets you up and running with Visual Studio 2008 in no time. You'll discover Microsoft's vision for Visual Studio, get familiar with the .Net environment and languages, and learn how to install, browse, and make connections with Visual Studio. Soon, you'll be building applications for Vista, Office 2007, and mobile devices; using AJAX and LINQ; and testing and debugging your programs. Discover how to:
- Understand Visual Studio's role in software development
- Work with .Net languages
- Develop applications for Vista
- Build smart client interfaces
- Use the visual data designer
- Use Ajax controls
- Streamline application deployment
- Debug your applications
- Explore ASP. NET services
- Work with strongly typed data sets
- Access data with Visual Studio
- Program with Visual Studio 2008
- Build professional reports with Crystal Reports
Fully updated with new information on Vista and .NET Framework 3.0 development, MS Office application development, and more, Visual Studio 2008 All-In-One Desk Reference For Dummies also features a companion Web site packed with sample projects, supplemental podcasts, and a support forum. You'll never find a smarter way to get up to speed with Visual Studio 2008!
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