.NET Game Programming with DirectX 9.0 (VB .NET Edition)
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Author: Alexandre Santos Lobao, Ellen Hatton
List Price: $49.99
Our Price: Click to see the latest and low price
ISBN: 1590590511
Publisher: APress (01 January, 1970)
Edition: Paperback
Sales Rank: 142,394
Average Customer Rating: 2.17 out of 5
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Customer ReviewsRating: 1 out of 5
Stay FAR FAR away
I've been buying books from Amazon for years now, and not once have I actually written a review about one. However, this book is so terrible that I felt compelled to send out a warning to all those considering this book. The whole time I was reading it, the only thing I could think of was all of the naive programmers out there who might just be learning and not realize all of the bad practices this book is advising. Not to mention a complete misunderstanding of how Object Oriented Programming is to be used. According to Mr. Lobao, EVERYTHING derives from a game engine - a sprite, a tile, a font, etc... I can't believe a book like this ever made it to press. I also find it laughable that the foreward is written by a Microsoft MVP whose focus is in ADO.NET, and the technical reviewer specializes in data warehousing and internet solutions. Um, since this is a book about GAME programming, shouldn't someone who actually knows a bit about GAME programming actually review the thing?
Rating: 1 out of 5
Too many errata for this to be an effective teaching book
Like a few others who have posted here I was excited to see this book. How disappointed I was to find that the book was a complete mess. I feel for other budding game programmers like me who have struggled looking for the Draw( ) command referred to on pages 36 and 37. I kept searching through the previous pages, sure that I had missed something somewhere.Turns out there is no Draw( ) command, never was. The correct command is Show( ). If I'm not mistaken the problem does not exist on the CD source code (available with the book), but for those who are typing it in from the book line by line (like me), you can stop looking now. The mistake has been caught by APress and that plus other errata can be found here: http://www.apress.com/book/errataDisplay.html?bID=111&sID=1039 I realize now that lots of books have errata pages online, so I guess this is normal in the industry, but it seems obvious to me that nobody at APress actually sat down and tried to USE this book as a layman. I know this because if they had done so prior to going to print, they would have found and fixed this problem! What is also funny is that Mr. Labao and Ms. Hatton also have apparently not used the book they wrote, either. Kinda scary that as computer scientists they published the book while forgetting the most BASIC concept of computer programming of any kind: TEST, TEST, TEST!!!!
Rating: 1 out of 5
This book fails to teach VB or Game Programming!
I had been waiting for this book to come out for months. After multiple delays, it finally arrived. And, I am very disappointed. Clearly a lot has been removed from the book since its initial concept.The "Game Programming" aspect of the book is just one Chapter. There are references to a mysterious Chapter 6 throughout the book, but Chapter 6 does not exist. My guess is that it was removed before publication. This book is not even good if you are new to programming. There are several places that assume you have an understanding of C/C++. Novice programmers will be quite frustrated by this. I originally bought this book as a gift for my young nephew who has not programmed in any language, hoping it was going to teach VB in the context of game programs. Unfortunately it fails to cover VB from a novice perspective, and there is only one chapter on games. Hardly worth putting Game Programming in the title. My recommendation is to find another book. Unfortunately this one does not live up to its promises.
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