Books for Visual Basic and Visual Studio Programming

Printed books about Visual Basic and Visual Studio programming provide in-depth sources of information and self-paced training that Web sites can supplement but not replace. As you seek to expand your Visual Basic and Visual Studio programming skills, I recommend that you consult the following sources of printed information (listed here by category). Note that this isn't a complete bibliography of Visual Studio 2005 titles, but it is a list that's representative of the books available in English at the time of the initial release of Visual Studio 2005. I also list books related to database programming, Web programming, Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) programming, and general books about software development and computer science.

Visual Basic 2005 Programming

Programming Microsoft Visual Basic 2005 Core Reference, by Francesco Balena (Microsoft Press, ISBN 0-7356-2183-7)
Practical Guidelines and Best Practices for Microsoft Visual Basic and Visual C# Developers, by Francesco Balena and Guiseppe Dimauro (Microsoft Press, ISBN 0-7356-2172-1)
OOP: Building Reusable Components with Microsoft Visual Basic .NET, by Ken Spencer, Tom Eberhard, and John Alexander (Microsoft Press, ISBN 0-7356-1379-6). This book covers Visual Basic .NET 2003 but is still useful.

Visual Studio 2005 and Microsoft .NET Framework

Working with Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Team System, by Richard Hundhausen (Microsoft Press, ISBN 0-7356-2185-3)
Debugging, Tuning, and Testing Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 Applications, by John Robbins (Microsoft Press, ISBN 0-7356-2202-7)

Database Programming with ADO.NET

Microsoft ADO.NET 2.0 Step by Step, by Rebecca Riordan (Microsoft Press, ISBN 0-7356-2164-0)
Programming Microsoft ADO.NET 2.0 Core Reference, by David Sceppa (Microsoft Press, ISBN 0-7356-2206-X)
Programming Microsoft ADO.NET 2.0 Applications: Advanced Topics, by Glenn Johnson (Microsoft Press, ISBN 0-7356-2141-1)
Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Express Step by Step, by Jackie Goldstein (Microsoft Press, ISBN 0-7356-2184-5)

Web Programming with ASP.NET

Microsoft Visual Web Developer 2005 Express Edition: Build a Web Page Now! by Jim Buyens (Microsoft Press, ISBN 0-7356-2212-4)
Microsoft ASP.NET 2.0 Programming Step by Step, by George Shepherd (Microsoft Press, ISBN 0-7356-2201-9)
Programming Microsoft ASP.NET 2.0 Core Reference, by Dino Esposito (Microsoft Press, ISBN 0-7356-2176-4)
Programming ASP.NET 2.0 Applications: Advanced Topics, by Dino Esposito (Microsoft Press, ISBN 0-7356-2177-2)
Beginning ASP.NET 2.0 Databases: Beta Preview, by John Kauffman, Thiru Thangarathinam (Wrox Press, ISBN 0-7645-7081-1)

Visual Basic for Applications Programming

Microsoft Office Excel 2003 Programming Inside Out, by Curtis Frye, Wayne S. Freeze, and Felicia K. Buckingham (Microsoft Press, ISBN 0-7356-1985-9)
Programming Microsoft Office Access 2003 (Core Reference), by Rick Dobson (Microsoft Press, ISBN 0-7356-1942-5)

General Books about Programming and Computer Science

Code Complete, Second Edition, by Steve McConnell (Microsoft Press, ISBN 0-7356-1967-0)
Code, by Charles Petzold (Microsoft Press, ISBN 0-7356-1131-9)
Writing Secure Code, Second Edition, by Michael Howard, David LeBlanc (Microsoft Press, ISBN 0-7356-1722-8)
Software Project Survival Guide, by Steve McConnell (Microsoft Press, ISBN 1-57231-621-7)
Data Structures and Algorithms Using Visual Basic .NET, by Michael McMillan (Cambridge University Press, ISBN 0-521547652)
The Art of Computer Programming, Volumes 1-3, by Donald Knuth (Addison-Wesley Professional, ISBN 0-201485419)
Data Structures and Algorithms, by Alfred V. Aho, Jeffrey D. Ullman, John E. Hopcroft (Addison-Wesley, ISBN 0-201000237)