New to Visual Basic 2005 / Need Suggestions for books, tutorials, etc

Hi all

I am new to programming, and new to Visual Basic. I just downloaded VB 2005 Express Edition about a week ago, and I have been taking the msdn video lessons. I am on video 6 of the 16 videos. There are so many books out there for Visual Basic that I don't know where to start.

Maybe if I tell you what my goal is for using Visual Basic that will help you point me in the right direction. My company has an Information Technology Applications Programmer position open. They will hire someone who has experience with Visual Basic before they hire someone who does not have experience with Visual Basic. In order to demonstrate the experience that I have in Visual Basic, I plan to write a program that monthly generates reports from data in Excel. The program will have to organize the data, compile statistics, and report the monthly statistics. I know I have a lot to learn. That is why I am asking for your help.

I generally learn easily by writing code, and by trial and error. I've written all of my own html code on www.geocities.com/terceslil. I learned by my own trial and error experiences, and not from reading any book. I believe I will need to learn more about Visual Basic in order to write the program to generate monthly reports.

So now that you know my goal, please tell me if you think the following books will help, or if you know of any other good books to get me started on the right track.

These are just a few that I've been looking at:

Visual Basic 2005 for Dummies Bill Sempf
Visual Basic 2005 Express Edition for Dummies Richard Mansfield
Build a Program Now! Patrice Pelland
Microsoft Visual Basic 2005 Step by Step Michael Halvorson
Microsoft Visual Basic 2005 Express Edition Programming for the Absolute Beginner
Visual Basic .NET Power Tools Evangelos Petroutsos, Richard Mansfield

I know the Visual Basic .NET Power Tools is more advance, but I plan on getting there. I also noticed when I registered that it said Build a Program Now! by Patrice Pelland may be offered to me because I registered. Did anyone get this from Microsoft when they registered Of course I am concerned about the cost of the books, CD tutotials, and/or learning software piling up, but will spend what is necessary in order to get a good grasp on Visual Basic.

Any help you offer will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

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New to Visual Basic 2005 / Need Suggestions for books, tutorials, etc

Rawus
Thanks

I downloaded Microsoft Visual Basic 2005 Express Edition - Build a Program Now! It saved me from having to buy it. I also downloaded Introducing Microsoft Visual Basic 2005 for Developers. I believe these will help me, along with the videos.

I'll check out the other sites listed on //forums.microsoft.com/MSDN/ShowPost.aspx PostID=212558&SiteID=1

Wish I could be like jmcilhinney who never cracked a book.
Volo

hi,

this thread contain some good tutorials online

http://forums.microsoft.com/MSDN/ShowPost.aspx PostID=212558&SiteID=1

hope this helps
forwhat79
I haven't used any books for 2005 yet but if you don't have programming experience then I'd say that "Teach Yourself in 21 Days" series from Sams is good. Don't get a Dummies book. If you have the potential to be a real programmer then you should be able to cope with something more advanced than that. If you want to work in the profession then you should plan to be a Dummy for such a brief period that buying one of those books would be a waste of money.
New to Visual Basic 2005 / Need Suggestions for books, tutorials, etc

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