Beta Readers Wanted - Visual Basic 2005

[Jesse Liberty]

I am writing a new book on Visual Basic 2005, targeted at VB6 programmers,
and to some degree VB.NET 1.x programmers. I'd like to sign up a (limited)
number of volunteers to read the book and provide feedback.

To participate you would...
1. Sign a non-disclosure agreement
2. Read each chapter in Word format and mark it up and return it within a
week of receipt
3. Be open honest and direct, providing feedback about the content and
approach.

Those who participate and provide feedback will receive an acknowledgement
in the book and will also receive a copy of the book upon publication. There
is no financial or other compensation, I'm afraid.

If you are interested, please write to me at jl******@libert yassociates.com
(do not post a response here as it will clutter up the news group) and
please be sure to tell me your programming experience and level of interest
in VB 2005.

To learn more about me and my books, you may want to take a look at my web
site: http://www.LibertyAssociates.com

Thank you.

-j

[Larry Serflaten]

"Jesse Liberty" <jl******@liber tyassociates.co m> wrote i

I am writing a new book on Visual Basic 2005, targeted at VB6 programmers,
and to some degree VB.NET 1.x programmers. 3. Be open honest and direct, providing feedback about the content and
approach.

Several books target that audience, few target non-programmers.

Hint hint!
LFS

[Jesse Liberty]

My hope is that my book will be accessible to non-programmers, but the truth
is that there are about 2 million VB6 programmers who have not yet made the
swtich to VB.NET.

Also (and I know everyone says this) I think I'll be taking a radically
different approach. My theory is this: if I were going to teach you VB 2005
in person, I would not start with teaching you looping and conditionals. I'd
fire up Visual Studio and build an applicaiton, explaining what you need to
know about the language and about object oriented programming as we go. That
is how this book will work.

-j
"Larry Serflaten" <se*******@usin ternet.com> wrote in message
news:O5******** ******@TK2MSFTN GP09.phx.gbl...

"Jesse Liberty" <jl******@liber tyassociates.co m> wrote i

I am writing a new book on Visual Basic 2005, targeted at VB6 programmers, and to some degree VB.NET 1.x programmers.

3. Be open honest and direct, providing feedback about the content and
approach.

Several books target that audience, few target non-programmers.

Hint hint!
LFS

[Larry Serflaten]

"Jesse Liberty" <jl******@liber tyassociates.co m> wrote

My hope is that my book will be accessible to non-programmers, but the truth
is that there are about 2 million VB6 programmers who have not yet made the
swtich to VB.NET.
And there are 1001 books that will try to get them to convert! ;-)

Also (and I know everyone says this) I think I'll be taking a radically
different approach.

My idea of a needed book on programming would begin with a short
history on the evolution of computers, a introduction to generic system
architecture (common motherboard components) and logic circuits
(AND/OR gates, etc.) and give the reader a feel for the evolution of
programming languages. That evolution would help to indicate why
hexidecimal is a common notation, and part of a chapter should
cover conversions from decimal to hex and binary, Hex arithmetic,
and include logic operations on Hex values.

Then go ahead with the basic loops and conditional constructs and
so forth, on into VB language syntax, the event processing model,
OOA/OOP (Object properties/methods), and framework classes,
et.al.

I am thinking anyone interested enough to pick up a book on programming
would be interested in the history of the technology (to some degree).
10 or so pages at the start may be all that is needed to capture the
interest of 'wannabe' programmers, without totally distracting the more
advanced users. (Having your facts correct would solidify what they
already know)

I mentioned it only because I've read several books already, and have been
in a couple courses where non-programmers bring up discussions on
dealing with the "things you did like that in VB6, you do like this in VB.NET"
syndrom that is inevitable in books of the type you indicated.

I'd suggest you avoid that pitfall. If your reader is a VB6 programmer,
chances are they can recognise what you are talking about was handled
differently in previous versions. If your reader is a non-programmer,
adding what some other language did is of no value, or use, and only
confuses the issue.

If you have also perpetrated that syndrom, I'd suggest you delete most
references of that nature, especially in cases where it would be fairly
obvious to the VB6 programmer what is going on.

How many pages was it? I have other things coming up, but, it can't
hurt to learn a thing or two... <g>

( I also have some text on the history of computing I wrote (several)
years ago for my own web site, if you'd be interested in how that might
look)

LFS

[Andrew Faust]

"Larry Serflaten" <se*******@usin ternet.com> wrote in message
news:ev******** *****@TK2MSFTNG P11.phx.gbl...

My idea of a needed book on programming would begin with a
short
history on the evolution of computers, a introduction to
generic system
architecture (common motherboard components) and logic circuits
(AND/OR gates, etc.) and give the reader a feel for the
evolution of
programming languages. That evolution would help to indicate
why
hexidecimal is a common notation, and part of a chapter should
cover conversions from decimal to hex and binary, Hex
arithmetic,
and include logic operations on Hex values.

I agree. In my current library to get an idea of this history
you'd have to read through my 600+ page computer architecture
book, my 500+ page programming languages book and my 400+ page
theory of computation book. To have all this information neatly
summarized and presented in a manner that is accessible to
beginners would be invaluable.

Andrew Faust

[David]

On 2004-09-25, Larry Serflaten <se*******@usin ternet.com> wrote:

"Jesse Liberty" <jl******@liber tyassociates.co m> wrote

My hope is that my book will be accessible to non-programmers, but the truth
is that there are about 2 million VB6 programmers who have not yet made the
swtich to VB.NET.

And there are 1001 books that will try to get them to convert! ;-)

Which ones are good?

That's a serious question, I don't really know what's out there for VB6
to VB.Net conversion, and I'm finding myself in a situation where I'm
dealing with a lot of people making that transition. There's a lot of
books that deal with the new syntax and the framework, but what I'm
really looking for is a higher level of abstraction.

It seems that books that deal with OOP in .Net start from scratch, while
good VB6 programmers have a starting point of object-based programming
of in COM and VB. Are there any good books out there that deal with
moving from object-based to object-oriented?

[Larry Serflaten]

"David" <df*****@woofix .local.dom> wrote

Which ones are good?
That may be a matter of taste.... :-(

That's a serious question, I don't really know what's out there for VB6
to VB.Net conversion, and I'm finding myself in a situation where I'm
dealing with a lot of people making that transition. There's a lot of
books that deal with the new syntax and the framework, but what I'm
really looking for is a higher level of abstraction.

It seems that books that deal with OOP in .Net start from scratch, while
good VB6 programmers have a starting point of object-based programming
of in COM and VB. Are there any good books out there that deal with
moving from object-based to object-oriented?

I haven't read this book, but I have others by this author and have listened to
him in person a couple times. This one, however, sounds more like what you're
after....

Visual Basic .NET Business Objects - by Rockford Lhotka
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg...63321?v=glance

Read the reviews, see if it may have what you want....

LFS

[Jesse Liberty]

I think you'll find that the book I'm writing is almost the exact opposite
of what you want <smile>

I do not intend to provide any of the background you are talking about; mine
will be a book in which you are creating a meaningful Visual Basic
application within the first 10 pages, and I will maintain a laser-focus on
the needs of the working professional (or very serious amateur) programmer.

In short, this is not a texbook nor an introductory book, but an
intermediate, hands-on, get working, be productive book. As for the pitfall
you mention, I think there is a happy middle ground of calling out in notes
the specific pitfalls and traps that mgiht await the unwary VB6 programmer.

As I said, serious novices may well be able to read the book, but they are
not the target.

Thanks!

-j

"Larry Serflaten" <se*******@usin ternet.com> wrote in message
news:ev******** *****@TK2MSFTNG P11.phx.gbl...

"Jesse Liberty" <jl******@liber tyassociates.co m> wrote

My hope is that my book will be accessible to non-programmers, but the truth is that there are about 2 million VB6 programmers who have not yet made the swtich to VB.NET.
And there are 1001 books that will try to get them to convert! ;-)

Also (and I know everyone says this) I think I'll be taking a radically
different approach.

My idea of a needed book on programming would begin with a short
history on the evolution of computers, a introduction to generic system
architecture (common motherboard components) and logic circuits
(AND/OR gates, etc.) and give the reader a feel for the evolution of
programming languages. That evolution would help to indicate why
hexidecimal is a common notation, and part of a chapter should
cover conversions from decimal to hex and binary, Hex arithmetic,
and include logic operations on Hex values.

Then go ahead with the basic loops and conditional constructs and
so forth, on into VB language syntax, the event processing model,
OOA/OOP (Object properties/methods), and framework classes,
et.al.

I am thinking anyone interested enough to pick up a book on programming
would be interested in the history of the technology (to some degree).
10 or so pages at the start may be all that is needed to capture the
interest of 'wannabe' programmers, without totally distracting the more
advanced users. (Having your facts correct would solidify what they
already know)

I mentioned it only because I've read several books already, and have been
in a couple courses where non-programmers bring up discussions on
dealing with the "things you did like that in VB6, you do like this in

VB.NET" syndrom that is inevitable in books of the type you indicated.

I'd suggest you avoid that pitfall. If your reader is a VB6 programmer,
chances are they can recognise what you are talking about was handled
differently in previous versions. If your reader is a non-programmer,
adding what some other language did is of no value, or use, and only
confuses the issue.

If you have also perpetrated that syndrom, I'd suggest you delete most
references of that nature, especially in cases where it would be fairly
obvious to the VB6 programmer what is going on.

How many pages was it? I have other things coming up, but, it can't
hurt to learn a thing or two... <g>

( I also have some text on the history of computing I wrote (several)
years ago for my own web site, if you'd be interested in how that might
look)

LFS

[scorpion53061]

http://www.visualbasicbooks.com/progvbrev.html

This book was written with the experienced vb6 programmer in mind.

"Larry Serflaten" <se*******@usin ternet.com> wrote in message
news:#y******** ******@TK2MSFTN GP09.phx.gbl:

"David" <df*****@woofix .local.dom> wrote

Which ones are good?

That may be a matter of taste.... :-(

That's a serious question, I don't really know what's out there for
VB6
to VB.Net conversion, and I'm finding myself in a situation where I'm
dealing with a lot of people making that transition. There's a lot of
books that deal with the new syntax and the framework, but what I'm
really looking for is a higher level of abstraction.

It seems that books that deal with OOP in .Net start from scratch,
while
good VB6 programmers have a starting point of object-based programming
of in COM and VB. Are there any good books out there that deal with
moving from object-based to object-oriented?

I haven't read this book, but I have others by this author and have
listened to
him in person a couple times. This one, however, sounds more like what
you're
after....

Visual Basic .NET Business Objects - by Rockford Lhotka

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg...071497-1963321
?v=glance

Read the reviews, see if it may have what you want....

LFS

[Jesse Liberty]

Belena's book is wonderfu, but totally different from what I have in mind.
His is a straight-forward tutorial, starting with fundamental language
skills. It is much more like the approach I take in Programming Visual
Basic.NET and Programming Windows Applications and Programming ASP.NET. I
think he has done a great job, but you don't learn about buildding web forms
until page 675, and you don't learn about builidng web forms until page
1195.

My new book will be much more about immediate productivity. We'll start by
building non-trivial applications, and learn the details as we go (using
side bars as needed).

There is room for both approaches, I hope, and I couldn't have more respect
for Balena's excellent book.

-j

"scorpion53 061" <ad***@nospamhe rekjmsolutions. com> wrote in message
news:O3******** ******@tk2msftn gp13.phx.gbl...

http://www.visualbasicbooks.com/progvbrev.html