Visual Studio Magazine

[irasmith]

Ok, Ill confess that I pretty much live under a rock...working during the day at the office then home at night to study all the wonderful new stuff with .NET and work on my website. So sometimes it takes me awhile to get in tune with the real world.

I happened to stumble onto Visual Studio Magazine and from what I can tell on the site it looks like a good publication to have. I havent been able to find any printed copies at the magazine stands.

So do you think this is a good publication for those of you who subscribe to it? Please, Im not looking for bashing or anything like that, I just really want some informed opinions which I will use to decide if I should subscribe to it or not.

Thanks for the input

 

[samsmithnz]

Ive been thinking about getting some magazines here for work too, so Id be interested in hearing some feedback on good .Net magazines too.

 

[NK2000]

i believe that you can find everything in the web with a little effort but if you have a job ( i am student till end of august then this also is true for me.. ) then you probably dont have that much time, so a magazine could help, but normally you really find a lot of information on sites about .net.

Is there any special reason why to get them?

 

[irasmith]

At least for me, sometimes it is more convenient or just easier to have a printed publication to read while sitting out on the deck enjoying the evening sunset/early night air and read. Other times it comes in handy when visiting relatives and I get a case of just cant get to sleep yet not able to connect to the net and surf since dont have a laptop.

I noticed the site does have some articles on line, however, I dont know if they publish all their articles on line or not. I noticed you could check out the table of contents for the February and March issues and what I saw looked interesting to me. So with my curosity sparked I had to ask my question here to see what others experience or comments were regarding the publication.

 

[NK2000]

yes there are times without pc but at those times i normally read something which i have to learn or a book coding, so there is enough for off-pc reading

i dont think they will publish all their articles, because why should anybody buy it if everything is available for free , but you normally can find the other things on other sites.. but as i said it is more a thing for people with more time, since searching needs time too

 

[irasmith]

True, no need to publish a magazine if you publish all the articles to the general public on the website. And really that is one reason for my initial question. Since I cant locate a printed copy of the magazine I wasnt sure if the articles on the site were truly representative of the quality of information the full publication contained. The articles on the site look great, but I didnt know if that was the best of the lot or perhaps just enticements and articles of just as good or even better quality were in the printed copy only.

True, searching the web does take time and I spend quite a bit of time doing that now for one project or another. My collection of programming and computer related books continues to grow as I buy and read more as well.

 

[NK2000]

uhm it would be an easy way just to ask some people on that page for a scan of some sites just to look in and so
but perhaps also ask the editor of that magazine if you can get one for free and tell him that you cant buy it at your place, i dont think they will say just no, there is for sure a possibility to sneak in

True, searching the web does take time and I spend quite a bit of time doing that now for one project or another. My collection of programming and computer related books continues to grow as I buy and read more as well.

yeah i really can understand you

 

[reboot]

I get Visual Studio Magazine. I like it a lot, but its pretty thin for the price, IMHO.

 

[irasmith]

reboot,
Thank you for your input. I had wondered about the size of the magazine as I had subscriptions before to similiar type ones and they too were pretty thin. But I think I may give it a try out and see how it goes. Looks like you get a trial issue free and Im going to view things from the perspective that quality is better than quantity and go from there.

 

[iebidan]

What about MSDN Magazine, that one is a good one

 

[irasmith]

Good suggestion on the MSDN magazine. I think my only concern is that its coverage may be too broad based for me at this time.

I am still new to .NET and at this point am wanting to focus in on C# and VS.NET and really learn those technologies. Perhaps this is why I am swayed at this time to give VS.NET magazine a try out as it seems to be focused in on the things I am seeking.

If you feel this is in error or that MSDN does the same thing then please let me know. I havent previewed an issue of MSDN magazine and so I am clueless about its focus.

 

[NK2000]

i think you can learn the most in forums like these.. just dont only care about your own posts, so also answer posts of other users, there are often some missunderstandings which will be cleared here

i am now for 4 days here and i really enjoy these forums. i wanted to register in the past but always got error and i didnt get any replying email by an admin as i asked for help, but as already said i dont want to criticize them, they are also quite busy persons

but there is also a .net show, havent you check it out yet?
http://msdn.microsoft.com/theshow/

 

[Nerseus]

I used to get Visual Studio magazine (started when it was just for Visual Basic) but stopped about a year ago. I think its a great magazine, especially to introduce you to some features of .NET that you might not otherwise get into.

Microsoft has SO much information and SO many pre-built technologies/components that its hard to figure out what does what and when you might want to use something. Magazines like this help in that regard. Youll basically find two kinds of articles: very simple, surface scratching topics or super in-depth. The super in-depth articles are usually written by someone who has applied some technology to create a solution for something specific. These articles are less likely to help you unless you have a similar problem. The surface scratching articles are generally more helpful if youre just interested in reading about some technologies you dont have time to investigate yourself.

The Q&A portions are nice to glance through and bookmark. Who knows when you wont encounter a similar problem even if the question doesnt seem to have any meaning for you when you read it.

I used to get MSDN magazine as well. Generally speaking, MSDN had MUCH better articles, and much more in-depth. But, they covered a much broader range of topics including issues with IIS, SQL Server Admin, and Exchange Server. That generally left 2 or 3 articles that pertained to developers (mostly what I was reading it for).

Id say the $20 investment is worth it IF you plan on reading some of the articles. If work could pay for it then its a no-brainer - let them spend $20 on your education/happiness

I tried the online version of Visual Studio magazine. Besides two specific times I went online to search for an article I remembered reading but couldnt find, I never used it. I prefer to read things on paper, not online. The search was Ok, but generally Google is better for that.

For asking specific questions and getting specific answers, you really cant beat this forum (blatant, yet honest, plug).

-Nerseus

 

[irasmith]

I do thank you for that very well thought out and worded reply.

It will most likely be the weekend before I actually get to ordering VS.NET, but I think Ill give it a spin for a year and see how it works out for me. I will pass for the moment on MSDN magazine simply because my efforts need to focus on C# and VS.NET in general. When I get to the point where I need to broaden my horizions even further then it does sound like the logical choice to go with.

And true, the forums here are a great place for help. I do plan to keep coming back to them as I progress in my work at learning these technologies.

Thanks a bunch for the advice from everyone