Data Entry and Validation with C# and VB .NET Windows Forms  
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Author Nick Symmonds
Publisher APress
Length 768 pages
vbRad Rating: 3 fingers up. (3 out of 5)
Reviewed by Robert Gelb

This seems like a book that needs to be taught in college. In fact, it should be a separate required course. Because, let's face it - you take compiler theory, os fundamentals, file structures (like linked lists) - now how many of you actually build compilers and operating systems at your job. That's right - none. And when was the last time you had to create a linked list for a project. The answer is never. MS provides the Collection and Dictionary objects where people who are smarter than you have implemented Linked list for you.

The reason this topic is important is that college graduates write code that has no error handling or valication code whatsoever and their entry forms look like a monkey dragged and dropped the controls.

Actually, the book is named somewhat incorrectly. It is about data entry, valication and user interface design. The entire book in essense focuses on these issues.

Part of it explains how to leverage .NET built-in validation abilities, which are quite extensive compared to VB6/COM days.

Another very important part focuses on designing user interfaces.

And yet another part is about error handling.

All these issues are explored in great detail. Another thing that would have been great if it were covered is code generation. And that's because data entry screens lend themselves to easy code generation.

One thing that annoyed me about the book (in fact this annoys me about all the books that take this tack) is that it provides both VB.NET and C# code. For God's sake, the languages are identical, just pick one language and stop wasting paper.

Other than that the book is pretty good.


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