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

[scorpion53061]

IN that case I would be very interested in joining in Beta reading.

If you still need any.

"Jesse Liberty" <jl******@liber tyassociates.co m> wrote in message
news:hN******** ************@sp eakeasy.net:

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

[Tony Proctor]

Of those 2 million non-movers Jesse, a significant number will be people who
already have experience of multiple languages, and of long-standing
experience. You only have to browse these newsgroups to see the depth of
experience and knowledge for some VB'ers. Unfortunately, they wouldn't
benefit from your book -- most of these would be "up and running" given one
day with a 'Language Reference' and an extra strong cup of coffee/tea.

I would suggest that these people are non-movers because of the weight of
legacy code that MS has left them. This code probably belongs to commercial
organisations, not hobbyists, and there's generally not enough time, or
money, or team resources, or reliable tools, to achieve the move. In effect,
VB6 has become a "block end". When *we* move, it will be to something with a
more certain future.

Please read this the right way -- I'm not trying to criticise or belittle
your work, only to paint a different perspective. I've no idea how many of
those 2 million would fall into this class, and how many are simply waiting
for a good book. I just had to say these things though as the issues are
valid, but they're blatantly ignored by people in any position to help. A
typical reaction is to consider those voices and whining, whinging, and
luddite.

Tony Proctor

"Jesse Liberty" <jl******@liber tyassociates.co m> wrote in message
news:Mc******** ************@sp eakeasy.net...

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

[CJ Taylor]

Dan Appleman's Moving to VB.NET 3rd edition is awesome...

I looked at 4 books when making the conversion. Read em, then read
applemans, then read them again, made a lot more sense.

Again, VB6 creates a lot of bad habits, Appleman really tries to help you
through that.
"David" <df*****@woofix .local.dom> wrote in message
news:slrnclcdq2 .9bv.df*****@wo ofix.local.dom. ..

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?

[Jesse Liberty]

Great, please send me email to jl******@libert yassociates.com telling me a
bit about your programming background. The program is temporarily full, but
I expect to open a few moe slots very quickly.

Thanks.

-j
"scorpion53 061" <ad***@nospamhe rekjmsolutions. com> wrote in message
news:uW******** ******@TK2MSFTN GP10.phx.gbl...

IN that case I would be very interested in joining in Beta reading.

If you still need any.

"Jesse Liberty" <jl******@liber tyassociates.co m> wrote in message
news:hN******** ************@sp eakeasy.net:

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

[Jesse Liberty]

No, I think your points are excellent, and I' not in marketing. I'd be happy
to do a book like "An introduction to Programming using Visual Basic .NET"
though I'm not sure how big the audience would relaly be. Neat idea though.

-j

"Tony Proctor" <tony_proctor@a imtechnology_No MoreSPAM_.com> wrote in message
news:%2******** ********@TK2MSF TNGP15.phx.gbl. ..

Of those 2 million non-movers Jesse, a significant number will be people who already have experience of multiple languages, and of long-standing
experience. You only have to browse these newsgroups to see the depth of
experience and knowledge for some VB'ers. Unfortunately, they wouldn't
benefit from your book -- most of these would be "up and running" given one day with a 'Language Reference' and an extra strong cup of coffee/tea.

I would suggest that these people are non-movers because of the weight of
legacy code that MS has left them. This code probably belongs to commercial organisations, not hobbyists, and there's generally not enough time, or
money, or team resources, or reliable tools, to achieve the move. In effect, VB6 has become a "block end". When *we* move, it will be to something with a more certain future.

Please read this the right way -- I'm not trying to criticise or belittle
your work, only to paint a different perspective. I've no idea how many of
those 2 million would fall into this class, and how many are simply waiting for a good book. I just had to say these things though as the issues are
valid, but they're blatantly ignored by people in any position to help. A
typical reaction is to consider those voices and whining, whinging, and
luddite.

Tony Proctor

"Jesse Liberty" <jl******@liber tyassociates.co m> wrote in message
news:Mc******** ************@sp eakeasy.net...

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

[CJ Taylor]

Hey Jesse,

Just so you know (I can't email at work) but I did review the preface last
night and will be leaving my comments later....

Just a little heads up.

-CJ

"Jesse Liberty" <jl******@liber tyassociates.co m> wrote in message
news:Zt******** ************@sp eakeasy.net...

Great, please send me email to jl******@libert yassociates.com telling me a
bit about your programming background. The program is temporarily full, but I expect to open a few moe slots very quickly.

Thanks.

-j
"scorpion53 061" <ad***@nospamhe rekjmsolutions. com> wrote in message
news:uW******** ******@TK2MSFTN GP10.phx.gbl...

IN that case I would be very interested in joining in Beta reading.

If you still need any.

"Jesse Liberty" <jl******@liber tyassociates.co m> wrote in message
news:hN******** ************@sp eakeasy.net:

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
>

[Jesse Liberty]

CJ, please don't leave msgs. here, it will annoy the other user group
members. Send me private meail or, better, use the private forum.

Thansk.
"CJ Taylor" <[cege] at [tavayn] dit commmmm> wrote in message
news:Oa******** ******@TK2MSFTN GP09.phx.gbl...

Hey Jesse,

Just so you know (I can't email at work) but I did review the preface last
night and will be leaving my comments later....

Just a little heads up.

-CJ