An Introduction to Object-Oriented Programming with Visual Basic .NET [Paperback]

A big plus for this book is that all the examples work and you can download the chapter examples from Apress! The user friendly analogies make it an easy read. The only resistance I experienced was the free personal UML modeler that was referenced in the first part of the book. The first pass through these chapters I followed along by creating the diagrams by hand. After reading the rest of the book, I spent half a day learning the software and completing the chapter examples.

For me, this author paints a pretty good big picture of OOP! My other books are now helping with the details;)

I highly recommend this book for VB programmers who have never incorporated OOP in their programs.

Chapter Summary:

Chapter 1: Overview of Object Oriented Programming
This chapter starts with a very brief overview of the history of OOP.

Brief is good. It also has brief definitions of OOP characteristics;
Objects, Abstraction, Encapsulation, Polymorphism, Inheritance, and
Aggregation. It ends with a blurb about the history of VB.

Chapter 2: Designing OOP Solutions: Identifying the Class Structure &
Chapter 3: Designing OOP Solutions: Modeling the Object Interaction
These chapters go into UML and things like Use Cases, Class Diagrams,
Sequence Diagrams, Collaboration Diagrams, and Activity diagrams. This
seemed exciting to me because I never really get into anything like
this on the job, and I wanted to know a little more about it. Well,
while interesting this ended up being a bump in the road for me.

The Author says to either do the exercises with a UML Modeler you can
download from the net, or creating the diagram by hand. I wanted
to try the tool he used in the examples so I downloaded it. At this
point just let me say that you should be prepared to spend a lot of
time figuring out the tool if you decide to try it. It is not easy.
The directions for doing the exercises don't quite flow with actually
using the tool either. The author does state that it is pretty tricky
to use, but I really feel that the directions for these exercises
should have been better. I managed to get through some of the examples
in chapters 2 and 3 after a couple of hours.

Chapter 4: Designing OOP Solutions: A Case Study
This chapter talks about the process by which one would design an OOP
solution with a case study. The Author goes into good detail about the
actual steps needed, and does a good job explaining the methodology by
which this is accomplished. He also gives some good advice on how to
avoid some of the more common pitfalls of designing an OOP solution.

Chapter 5: Introducing VB .NET
This chapter gives an overview of VB.Net as well as the .Net
Framework. After the overview it gives you a hands on tour of the
Visual Studio .Net IDE. Of course, you will need to have the IDE to do
the tour. This tour shows you many of the screens, option settings,
and menus of Visual Studio .Net. The second exercise shows you the
debugging features of VS .Net. At his point you will need files that
you can download from the Apress web site. I may have missed it, but I
never saw any mention that downloading files was needed for the
exercises. It certainly was not at the beginning of this exercise, and I
think their should be some kind of direction about it present.

Chapter 6: Creating Classes
This chapter is all about classes. How to restrict them, access to
them, creating methods, overloading methods, using constructors to
name some topics. This chapter too has exercises you complete with VS
.Net. They all seemed to work fine for me, and were very easy to
follow.

Chapter 7: Creating Class Hierarchies &
Chapter 8: Implementing Object Collaboration
These chapters discuss things like inheritance, polymorphism,
interfaces, delegation, error handling, shared properties and methods
to new a few. These two chapters also have multiple hands-on
activities so you can continue to learn how to operate VS .Net as well
as learn more concepts of OOP. These activities are well documented,
and I had no problems completing them all without incident.

Chapter 9: OSO Application Revisited: Implementing the Business Logic
This chapter helps bring together all the ideas you were introduced to
in chapter 4. From there it goes into data access by talking about
stored procedures, ADO.net, sqlclient namespace, and many other
details. In order to do the examples you will have to have SQL Server.

Chapter 10: Developing Windows Applications
This is a fun chapter that talks about windows forms, event handlers,
dialog boxes and different types of bound controls. This chapter is
full of hands on activities that are well done.

Chapter 11: Developing Web Applications
This long chapter deals with web forms, server controls, server
control inheritance, server-side event processing, ASP.net, state, and
many other things. It is all about designing an application for the
web. The activities are easy to follow, and work.

Chapter 12: Wrapping Up and Reviewing
A quick summation of what the book covers and some tips on where to
focus next.

Appendix A: Fundamental Programming Concepts
This appendix is basically a primer for beginning programmers.

Appendix B: Exception Handling in VB .NET
A quick 4-page explanation of how exceptions are handled in VB.Net

After finishing this book I had a hard time deciding what grade to
give it. I ended up giving it a 7 out of 10. The many problems I had
with the UML activities using the UML modeler were just too painful
and frustrating to give it higher than a 7.

I will admit that the rest of the book was great and would be very
useful to a beginner trying to become more familiar with VB.Net and
VS.net. The VS.net activities were flawless, and gave good hands-on
experience that beginners would love. The UML material was actually
good as well, but the problems with the modeling tool activities
really influenced my final judging of the book.

In summation, this book is without doubt a beginner's book. Do not buy
this if you already basically familiar with VS .net or UML. If you are a
beginner and do the UML activities with pen and paper I believe it will
be a great learning experience.