Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 Unleashed

by Mike Snell and Lars Powers

"Microsoft(r) Visual Studio 2008 Unleashed" is an end-to-end, deep dive into the Visual Studio development environment. It s meant to provide you guidance on how you can squeeze the ultimate... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0672329727
• ISBN13: 9780672329722
• Release Date: January 2008
• Publisher: Sams Publishing
• Length: 1219 Pages
• Weight: 4.25 lbs.
• Dimensions: 2.0" x 7.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Good overwview of Visual Studio 2008

I've found this book to be very well done. While others have said that its not very detailed, the level of details was perfect for what I was looking for. I liked the overview of WPF and the example on chapter 16 was a very good introduction to WPF. It gave me a good understanding of the basics and I now feel more confident to delve deeper. I've also looked at the section on Team System and found it to be perfect for what I was looking for. The reason for the 4 stars instead of 5 is that there were a number of errors in the source code. I've only looked at the source code in chapter 16, but there were a number of errors there. For example, they declare a variable "private string _path", but later on in the source code they refer to it as "path" (without the underscore). Ok, that is something I could figure out. In the buttonBlur_Click event they call a function BlurBitmapEffect, but they don't implement this function! Another issue I had, and this might be just because I'm new to WPF, but I followed the examples starting with the first one on Chapter 16. Well, when I got to the ImageViewer example, all of a sudden the namespace changed, and it wasn't mentioned. So I kept getting errors like InitializeComponent not found. It turns out that if you change the namespace you need to also changed it in the bin\obj\debug\Window1.g.cs file (make sure you have show all files set). Not sure if this is something the authors should have mentioned, but wouldn't it be logical for someone to follow examples from start to finish without creating new solutions/projects for each one? I've only listed three such issues, but there were a number of small issues like this. I finally just downloaded the source code from their website and everything there seemed to work. The website is -[...] and then click on the downloads page. If the above link doesn't work you can get to it via [...]and then click on the "More Information" link.

Review from Paresh

To start with, I think there are a myriad of sources with bits and pieces of the information you need about Visual Studio 2008 and its features, and I feel Mike and Lars have done a commendable job in pulling them all together in one comprehensible written book. Every chapter of this book is well documented with clear, incisive examples and screenshots and overall this book takes you leaps and bounds into an advanced level of knowledge. This book has helped my overall productivity a great deal. Kudos to Mike and Lars for producing such a great resource for programmers like me. And last but not the least this book quite simply in my humble opinion, is a "must have" for anybody who wants to use Visual Studio more effectively.

Very Good Book

Gimme a break... Not sure what the 1 star rating is all about, but I found this book to be very helpful in getting me up and running in the Visual Studio 2008 environment. This book has a lot of information and is a great resource, so if you need an excellent reference manual this is it. I highly recommend this book for those who feel overwhelmed with Visual Studio 2008.

Great how to, not a step by step however

When used as a resource this is a fine book. Do not think it is a good step-by-step manual however. Many assumptions are made as to your familiarity with the sections of Visual Studio. The need for a CD with examples is apparent after working with this book.

Excellent Intro to the Visual Studio 2008 IDE

An excellent primer to the VS2008 IDE. Covers a vast area with a fair amount of detail, and provides excellent quality screenshots throughout. Highly recommended if you want to get up to speed with this huge IDE. Not sure what the previous reviewer's issue was with the book, as he provided no details to justify his one star review.