Beginning .NET Game Programming in VB .NET

Category: Technical

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Description

By Ellen Hatton, Alexandre Santos Lobao, David Weller,

Publisher: Apress
Number Of Pages: 440
Publication Date: 2004-09-20
Sales Rank: 436137
ISBN / ASIN: 1590594010
EAN: 9781590594018
Binding: Paperback
Manufacturer: Apress
Studio: Apress
Average Rating: 2.5

Beginning .NET Game Programming in VB .NET presents the work of David Weller (.NET Game evangelist at Microsoft) and a group of key Microsoft insiders who decided to write the ideal introduction to game programming for VB .NET programmers. Weller has switched his previous book to VB .NET and added a bonus chapter. The book has passed all internal Microsoft tests as to programming style. This thoroughly revised and improved version (including a bonus chapter) is the ideal way to get into .NET game programming using the VB .NET language.

Review:

Good Introduction for beginners

I would hate for people to get the wrong idea about the book from reading the other posts. This really isn't a bad book.
I am completely new to game programming (although not new to VB), and following along with the examples I was able to get the Tetris, Caterpillar and other games to work.
This gives a good introduction to game programming, covering both 2D and some 3D graphics.

But the book isn't all about writing the code. It also tells the reader how to plan out a game before coding, and gives good tips on keeping the project on track.

The book isn't perfect though. There are some errors in the code (but only one glaring instance of C# code in the VB code).
But APress has followed up, and has posted some code corrections on the web-site, and gives the downloadable code which helps a great deal.

I found the text of the book to be very easy to follow. The author has more of a conversational style than lecturing.

I think the book succeeds in being a good introduction to game programming. Getting the Tetris game to work gives you the incentive to keep reading and learning. Plus, it is fun to play your own game!

Review:

a poor attempt at a quick buck, shame on Apress!

My biggest complaint with VB.NET game programming books so far (and I've read a few) has been that they either: A) try to teach elementary VB.NET using game flavored examples (but nothing about actual game development) or B) try to take existing game programming material and shoe-horn it into a VB.NET book. Sadly this book falls squarely into the second category (so far).

It's quite obvious that ALL of the sample code was originally written in C#. No big deal, it's easy enough to convert. However, if you aren't a VB.NET guy, don't you dare write a freaking book with VB.NET in the title. There are more differences between VB.NET and C# than just syntax!! For the love of god, 85% of the code samples (encountered so far) do NOT work as printed in the book. Some have glaring C# syntax still in them, but only in places... often sharing a line with VB.NET syntax. The tech editor should be drawn and quartered, on TV.

To make matters worse, the main author seems somewhat condescending (arrogant?) for someone who's never actually published a game in his/her life, ever (and had to have TWO other people write the book with him... neither of whom have ever published a game either.) This is an actual quote, immediately after some collision detection code that DOES NOT work as printed... If you think this is too much math, this is probably the place where you should take this book back and take up something less mathematically demanding, like nuclear physics! Ok... seriously? That comment would be a lot more impressive if your code ACTUALLY WORKED!

So far I have nothing positive to say about this book, so let me see... ok well, the girl on the back cover is kinda cute (allegedly one of the authors, although I have no idea which sections are written by whom... is that good or bad? You tell me.) Oh yeah, and the price I paid was 40% off, although sadly I still feel ripped off!

FWIW, I did eventually get the collision detection code to work on paper, although NO explanation is made for why the algorithm handles things a certain way, and the reader is told to perform a simple Google search for more info (I kid you not!!). I'm guessing this is because they don't actually know why the code they "borrowed" (from the net?) did things that way either.

At this point, I'm almost considering this book as a possible alternative energy source. I can't believe anyone at one of my favorite publishers actually read this book prior to printing it and selling it for $50 a copy. By the time you rip out the index, table of contents, foreward, introduction, recommended reading and 'about the author' section... it's barely 350 pages. Yes... I know it's not about page count, but when quality is already out the window, what other metric is there?

I'm not going to tell you the name of this book or the publisher (yet), because even though I've managed to work up this much bile and stomach acid over it, I'm only on page 35. God help me, I hope it gets better quickly.

It's funny, every truly good tech book I read makes me less inclined to try writing my own. This book, however, has convinced me that I still have a pretty good chance at getting published.

Review:

Don't be fooled

Although this book isn't a complete waste of money, don't be fooled. It's not very well written.
There are countless errors in the code right from the beginning. They also just skip telling you some important pieces about what is going on in every chapter.
However, you can still squeeze some use from this book. Go to the web site and download all the code from them. For the most part, the code works and can be your reference. You *can* learn from this book and d/l code, but you have to work at it and use a lot of trial and error.

Thank you for reading.

Review:

Don't Waste Your Money!

This book may present some theoretical views for beginner level game programming, but do not expect to learn the correct syntax for VB.NET. Actually if you purchase the same authors book for programming in C# you'll find they have the same first chapter (that's as far as I looked). This book was obviously a lazy attempt for these people to make a quick buck. Unfortunately they wait until the end of the book to let you know:
"Most of the example games leave much room for improvement. Even when we looked back on them after finishing each chapter, we would sometimes look at parts of the code and think, "We can't believe we wrote that." Even worse, some of the things we told you aren't always true." pg 348
While I was trying to complete the exercises in this book I spent more time with my nose in other books so I could learn the correct way to do it. Do yourself a favor get a different book.

Review:

quick copy and paste from the C# version

It seems like a decent book, but there is quite a few mistakes in the code in making reference to methods that don't exist and even using C# code mixed with VB.BET.

(this is exactly the text, no typo on my part)
page 34

Public Class GameField
public class GameField {
public Shared Color BackColor as Color;
End Class}

I am just starting the book, but I have found 4 errors already. I guess as long as you are paying attention to what you are reading you should be able to figure them out, so I guess it keeps you on your toes. You just have to be ready to figure out why their code doesn't work when it doesn't.

Other than that I am sure this book is still worth buying though.

http://mihd.net/qdzcun

http://rapidshare.com/files/61094060/Beginning_.NET_Game_Programming_in_VB.NET.rar

http://www.zshare.net/download/408088796c84d2/

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