The Visual Basic environment allows developers to create programs using Microsoft’s proprietary framework. vb is a powerful language that started as an abstraction of the basics and now often covers the vb.net ecosystem.
if you are looking for a good way to get started with visual basic, this post is for you! I have cataloged the best books on vb.net and general vb coding for complete beginners.
You are reading: Best vb net books
Take a look at this list and see which books catch your eye. If you work hard and keep practicing, I guarantee you can be a vb master in no time.
visual basic 2015 unleashed
Visual Basic 2015 Unleashed is an absolutely massive guide spanning a whopping 1,440 pages long. This thing is a juggernaut and it’s probably the most detailed guide you’ll ever find on the subject of Visual Basic programming.
Because of the length, I find it difficult to recommend it for beginners. it can be very unpleasant and even intimidating if you don’t know where to start.
Most of the writing style is very technical and written for professional software developers. even from the beginning, this book assumes that you have some programming knowledge and just need to learn vb from scratch.
If you’re willing to work with this book, I highly recommend getting a copy. is an excellent resource for digging into the details of vb.net and even the computer science concepts behind programming.
but for absolute beginners, I think this will be overwhelming at first glance.
sams learn visual basic on your own
On the other side of the fence there’s the Sams Teach Yourself Visual Basic book practically made solely for beginners.
this is also quite long with over 600 pages of exercise materials. but the writing is much clearer and does not speak ill of the reader.
Instead, this book almost feels like a fun trip through the world of visual basic to see what it has to offer. The first few chapters introduce vb and basic concepts like objects, events, and simple UI layouts.
Naturally, you’ll also learn about Visual Studio and how you can use it in a typical workflow.
The general style of this book is simple but precise. It doesn’t have a lot of practical real-world scenarios for you to follow, but if you apply the advice in this book with your own ideas, you should be able to create some really cool stuff.
visual basic in easy steps
Mike McGrath’s Visual Basic in Easy Steps is one of the newest books in this list. It teaches you how to create simple applications using Visual Studio Community and the .NET framework.
This book provides screenshots and code examples that are very easy to read. The first few chapters teach you how to script with visual basic using real applications.
For example, you’ll learn how to create simple macros for Microsoft Word and Excel that you can save and reuse in the future. This book also teaches you how to manipulate local data files and databases using vbscript within windows (win 7/8/10).
From simple controls to custom variables and loops, this book has it all in very simple steps.
but it lacks a certain focus you might expect in a vb programming book, so I can’t recommend it unless you want to dive right in.
starting visual basic 2015
The goal of this book is to grab complete beginners and keep them interested long enough to get them building custom Windows applications.
Getting Started Visual Basic 2015 is another 600+ page introductory book that covers all the basics of vb and vb.net. it is quite simple to read and does not assume any prior knowledge of programming. you don’t need to know oop or even what a variable does.
A good portion of this book focuses on forms and user interactions within the application. Through hands-on exercises, you’ll learn about the Visual Basic coding environment and how it plays a role in your work.
but by the second chapter you’ll be in the .net framework and ready to start building real world applications.
The author even dives into web development using .net, which is a bit of a nuanced topic, but I think he handles it very well. grab this introductory book if you need something easy to read but also want to create more practical tools right away.
visual basic 2015 by murach
Currently in its 6th edition the Murach’s Visual Basic 2015 guide is one of the most detailed resources you can get. It’s extremely wordy but also very easy to read.
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The reason it’s easy to read is not because it uses simple language or avoids complex topics. instead, the book takes the perspective of a complete beginner and attempts to fill in the gaps that most newcomers don’t understand.
This is an excellent book for learning how vb works from visual studio software to object coding and working with data types.
Each lesson is very detailed and you will get a detailed explanation of each code snippet. I highly recommend this book to anyone willing to put in the time and blast through the 900+ pages of exercises.
It’s especially good for existing programmers who know another language but want to move to visual basic. The world of vb is very different from other languages, so having a detailed guide can make the learning process much easier.
microsoft visual basic .net programming
Programming Microsoft Visual Basic .NET is an extraordinary asset for learning to code scalable applications for the web or for MS Windows.
The book is pretty cheap if you get the hardcover version and it’s also huge (1600 pages).
This is a particularly technical manual, so please consider this before obtaining a copy. doesn’t treat the reader like a beginner, so you’ll have to get comfortable working with complex code or googling solutions on your own.
each chapter is broad and very deep for you to learn all about vb.net and the visual studio editor. If you work through all of these lessons, you will definitely reach intermediate to advanced levels by the end.
excel vba programming for dummies
Excel is wildly popular for data management and it supports tons of programmable features that VB developers love.
If you are trying to learn vb for a practical purpose, take a look at excel vba programming for beginners. Now in its fourth edition, this book teaches you absolutely everything you could ever want to do with Excel, all from a daring programmer’s perspective.
The first few chapters explain the basics of vb and how it interfaces with excel. From there, you’ll learn how to debug and rewrite code so it works in any spreadsheet.
Simply follow each lesson and take notes as you go. these macros aren’t crazy over the top and you won’t need to learn algorithmic programming just to make vb/excel work.
Still, this book is valuable because it is practical and solves a real-world need. If you’re a heavy Excel user, this is a must-have resource.
learn visual basic .net
The Microsoft .NET framework is huge. It’s used primarily on Windows machines but it also supports web developers as well.
Using .net you can program over vb or c#, which are very powerful languages. learning visual basic .net is a book written for object-oriented programmers who want to dive into this amazing framework without much prior knowledge.
It helps if you’re already familiar with vb, though it’s not 100% required. just expect a steeper learning curve!
The first few chapters explain the unique syntax structure along with the typical configuration of a .net application. then you will learn about classes, operators, structures, arrays, loops and all the typical programming jargon. but this isn’t covered in great detail, so if you already have experience you’ll advance even faster.
Anyone who wants to learn oop with .net and visual basic should check out this guide. It’s not very long, but it’s fairly easy to read, and it’s one of the few books that novices can follow as well.
vb.net language pocket reference
If you like short books then you might enjoy using the VB.NET Language Pocket Reference.
This is definitely a smaller book with only 144 pages of reference materials. but the pages are super dense and you can learn a lot just by flipping through the index to find relevant material.
You will find information about procedures in the microsoft.visualbasic namespace along with main functions and library classes. all of this wrapped up inside a book that can comfortably fit in your laptop bag or backpack.
Note that you can try many of these things by searching online if you have questions. so I don’t think the pocket reference guide is as useful now as it was 5 or 10 years ago.
but still, for a .net guide, this one is pretty cheap and very efficient.
vb.net core classes in a nutshell
This guide is more of a mix between a reference book and a how-to guide. It’s a detailed resource covering the .NET framework and the core functions you get in Visual Basic.
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vb.net core classes in a nutshell spans over 500 pages covering the core namespaces in the .net framework, each presented in a different chapter with clear examples.
You’ll find solutions for just about everything, from debugging to performance monitoring to expanding your programs with third-party libraries. the writing style is fairly clean and easy to understand, but it’s still helpful to have a bit of visual basic development experience.
Network and I/O data is also covered in greater detail later in the book. Unfortunately I don’t think many exercises are practical for modern use, but the lessons are still great for understanding these concepts for your own work.
the visual basic .net programming language
One of the most comprehensive reference/teaching guides in the .NET framework is Paul Vick’s The Visual Basic .NET Programming Language.
this uses a ton of code examples to help illustrate how certain classes and functions work. the lessons are extremely practical and you will see a lot of code without much theory in between.
if you’re someone who likes to dive into code, then this book will please you. however, because it has so little writing, it is also difficult for beginners to understand. many concepts are not explained in great detail, so you will find yourself referring to the internet to fill in the gaps.
and this is strictly a .net programming book, so it doesn’t include any visual form or visual studio design work.
if you’re just looking for a .net guide with a solid index for future reference, then this book belongs on your shelf.
visual basic .net programmer’s cookbook
With such a complicated framework like .NET it may seem weird to recommend a cookbook considering all the possible solutions. But the Visual Basic .NET Programmer’s Cookbook is absolutely fantastic and full of practical advice.
This is still in its first edition and encompasses a massive 800 pages of recipes and cool problem/solution workflows. you can browse to find anything you want to learn, from arrays/collections to xml scanning and data analysis.
The cookbook illustrates various scenarios in which you will think about the problem and work on the solution.
each recipe has a very compact solution, so the code base is solid. it’s very verbose and can be difficult to solve unless you know exactly what you’re trying to solve.
I also don’t like how this hasn’t been updated for a few years and I think it could benefit from an update. still, this is a good desktop reference if you’re trying to solve complex tasks where stack overflow can’t help much.
programming with microsoft visual basic 2015
Here’s a much newer book with the most recent update being late 2015. Programming with Microsoft Visual Basic 2015 is currently in its 7th edition with a total of 930 pages jam-packed with guided tutorials.
The code snippets are flawless and these solutions should work for all projects. You will find many screenshots demonstrating what visual studio can do and why it is so popular.
but one downside of this book is the overly technical writing style. it’s really hard to follow on your own, so it really helps if you’ve worked with visual basic before.
Think of this more as a programmer’s guide to using visual and ide software. is a handy guide to many .net solutions, but the wording can be misleading even for semi-experienced programmers.
professional visual studio 2017
If you’re working with VB code then you’ll want to learn Visual Studio too. It’s Microsoft’s IDE specially made for VB development for desktop programs and websites/webapps.
professional visual studio 2017 is a comprehensive guide to the interface and idea from a visual and programmatic perspective. the latest version of vs 2017 comes with some new features and this book covers all of those plus the classic techniques as well.
This is truly the only introductory book you’ll need to learn and master visual studio. It not only covers the core functionality, but also includes tools and workflows that can make your job easier.
It helps if you already know some vb code, but you can also work through this book while learning visual basic at the same time.
Either way, I recommend it for anyone of any skill level, as long as they’re trying to learn the visual studio environment. this book is a great investment because vs is a lot like learning to ride a bike; once you get it, you’ll never forget it.
as you can imagine, visual basic is not an easy language to learn. It includes many facets such as the vb language itself, plus the .net framework and microsoft’s proprietary visual studio ide.
but if you start with a good beginner’s book, you can work through all the advanced features as you go. for complete beginners i recommend sams learn visual basic because it is easy to read and covers all the basics you need to know.
From there, you can branch out into whatever topics interest you and work towards mastering visual basic.
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