Warning: Poor quality MSPress books for .net certification
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The MSPress certification training kits for .NET are garbage. I just recently bought the self-paced training kit for exam 70-316/306 (Win based apps w/C# and vb.net), this book is full of errors and completely incorrect statements, In the first 3 chapters I found 4 glaring errors, one of which was a completely false statement that was just nuts. I think it is completely irresponsible for Microsoft to allow such poor quality books to be published in thier name. If you want good training material for .net cert, use the Mspress Step-by-step books or other Mspress books written by reputable authors like Jeff Prosise, Charles Petzold and Dino Esposito etc. Here they are (the last one is the worst): These are just what I found in the first 3 chapters, I won't be bothering to read the rest of this sad text. MSPress Developing Windows-Based Applications with Microsoft Visual Basic .NET and Microsoft Visual C# .NET Training Kit for Exams 70-306 and 70-316. Page 55: In regards to the Form.Show method, the book states "This method causes an instance of a form class to load into memory...". This is wrong, the constructor call with the new statement loads the object instance into memory; The Form.Show method when called for the first time actually tells Windows to create the physical window and display it on the screen, you can use the instantiated object and set properties etc. before you call the Show method, for example: DialogForm myForm = new DialogForm(); myForm.BackColor = Color.White; myForm.Show(); Page 60: A code example to abort a form closing in the Form.Closing event is written as follows; VB.Net: CancelEventArgs.Cancel = True and C#: CancelEventArgsCancel = true; This code wouldn't even compile because it uses the type name rather than the actual argument and should be: e.Cancel = true; Page 113: At the begining of the book on Page 9 a Note states "Throughout this book, when Visual Basic and C# terms are mentioned together in text, the VB term appears first, followed by the C# term in parenthesis." Which the book follows until page 113 (last paragraph) where they have: "Parse is a static(Shared) method,..." which of course should be "Parse is a Shared(static) method,..". Page 133: In regards to Read-Only properties, the book states: "In both languages, the private variable that holds the property value must be marked with the ReadOnly(readonly) keyword." and they state it again later in the instructions list to
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The MSPress certification training kits for .NET are garbage. I just recently bought the self-paced training kit for exam 70-316/306 (Win based apps w/C# and vb.net), this book is full of errors and completely incorrect statements, In the first 3 chapters I found 4 glaring errors, one of which was a completely false statement that was just nuts. I think it is completely irresponsible for Microsoft to allow such poor quality books to be published in thier name. If you want good training material for .net cert, use the Mspress Step-by-step books or other Mspress books written by reputable authors like Jeff Prosise, Charles Petzold and Dino Esposito etc. Here they are (the last one is the worst): These are just what I found in the first 3 chapters, I won't be bothering to read the rest of this sad text. MSPress Developing Windows-Based Applications with Microsoft Visual Basic .NET and Microsoft Visual C# .NET Training Kit for Exams 70-306 and 70-316. Page 55: In regards to the Form.Show method, the book states "This method causes an instance of a form class to load into memory...". This is wrong, the constructor call with the new statement loads the object instance into memory; The Form.Show method when called for the first time actually tells Windows to create the physical window and display it on the screen, you can use the instantiated object and set properties etc. before you call the Show method, for example: DialogForm myForm = new DialogForm(); myForm.BackColor = Color.White; myForm.Show(); Page 60: A code example to abort a form closing in the Form.Closing event is written as follows; VB.Net: CancelEventArgs.Cancel = True and C#: CancelEventArgsCancel = true; This code wouldn't even compile because it uses the type name rather than the actual argument and should be: e.Cancel = true; Page 113: At the begining of the book on Page 9 a Note states "Throughout this book, when Visual Basic and C# terms are mentioned together in text, the VB term appears first, followed by the C# term in parenthesis." Which the book follows until page 113 (last paragraph) where they have: "Parse is a static(Shared) method,..." which of course should be "Parse is a Shared(static) method,..". Page 133: In regards to Read-Only properties, the book states: "In both languages, the private variable that holds the property value must be marked with the ReadOnly(readonly) keyword." and they state it again later in the instructions list to
Yeah. I have both the Windows Forms and Web Forms books. The Windows Forms one is just full of errors. I caught all the same ones that you did. It was kind of interesting to see an MSPress book that is soooo bad. The examples are good though and I have picked up just a few things. I think the Web Forms one is better than the Windows Forms book. It's bigger and it has a lot more info on the different parts of ASP.NET. I would recommend that one if you're looking at taking the test.
You will now find yourself in a wonderous, magical place, filled with talking gnomes, mythical squirrels, and, almost as an afterthought, your bookmarks -Shog9 teaching Mel Feik how to bookmark I don't know whether it's just the light but I swear the database server gives me dirty looks everytime I wander past. -Chris Maunder
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The MSPress certification training kits for .NET are garbage. I just recently bought the self-paced training kit for exam 70-316/306 (Win based apps w/C# and vb.net), this book is full of errors and completely incorrect statements, In the first 3 chapters I found 4 glaring errors, one of which was a completely false statement that was just nuts. I think it is completely irresponsible for Microsoft to allow such poor quality books to be published in thier name. If you want good training material for .net cert, use the Mspress Step-by-step books or other Mspress books written by reputable authors like Jeff Prosise, Charles Petzold and Dino Esposito etc. Here they are (the last one is the worst): These are just what I found in the first 3 chapters, I won't be bothering to read the rest of this sad text. MSPress Developing Windows-Based Applications with Microsoft Visual Basic .NET and Microsoft Visual C# .NET Training Kit for Exams 70-306 and 70-316. Page 55: In regards to the Form.Show method, the book states "This method causes an instance of a form class to load into memory...". This is wrong, the constructor call with the new statement loads the object instance into memory; The Form.Show method when called for the first time actually tells Windows to create the physical window and display it on the screen, you can use the instantiated object and set properties etc. before you call the Show method, for example: DialogForm myForm = new DialogForm(); myForm.BackColor = Color.White; myForm.Show(); Page 60: A code example to abort a form closing in the Form.Closing event is written as follows; VB.Net: CancelEventArgs.Cancel = True and C#: CancelEventArgsCancel = true; This code wouldn't even compile because it uses the type name rather than the actual argument and should be: e.Cancel = true; Page 113: At the begining of the book on Page 9 a Note states "Throughout this book, when Visual Basic and C# terms are mentioned together in text, the VB term appears first, followed by the C# term in parenthesis." Which the book follows until page 113 (last paragraph) where they have: "Parse is a static(Shared) method,..." which of course should be "Parse is a Shared(static) method,..". Page 133: In regards to Read-Only properties, the book states: "In both languages, the private variable that holds the property value must be marked with the ReadOnly(readonly) keyword." and they state it again later in the instructions list to