I've read the first couple of chapters of this book, and so far I find it a very readable introduction to VB.NET 2005.



This book works best if you have prior VB experience either with VB 6.0 or VB.NET. I have experience with VB 3.0 through VB 6.0 and made the switch to VB.NET 2002 in Beta 2.



I personally am not interested in examples prior to VB.NET but the author sometimes includes VB 6.0 examples.



The author does a fine job of comparing and contrasting collections in VB 6.0, .NET Frameworks 1.0/1.1 and .NET Framework 2.0.



The book offers a to the point introduction of generics. He explains the benefits and how and why they should be used. This particular chapter has sample code to compare the performance of a fixed length array to an Array List to a generic List. The only problem with the code is that it uses an undefined function to compare the resulting execution times. It was easy to write the missing code, but the code shouldn't be missing.



It's true that you can eventually find everything the book says either on the web or by experimenting with the product, but the book does a good job of leading you through the new features in a meaningful way.



The author refers to .NET 1.2 which today doesn't exist. We know it as .NET 2.0, but in the early days it was referred to as 1.2.



I'm going to read this book as a review to help prepare me for a VB.NET 2005 class that I will attend soon. If you already know a lot about the new features of VB.NET 2005 then you probably don't need this book.



After I've finished reading the book I'll edit this review to let you know if my feelings have changed.