I reviewed the orginal version of this book which was in C#. I've been lucky enought ot get my hands on the new VB.NET edition and it is even better than the original. I am more used to VB as it is, and I spent quite a lot of time translating some of the code snippets in the original, but now I don't have to! The book has changed a bit, it looks better than the first edition, and it is now completely 1.0 compliant. I've used the first book a lot, it's told me more or less everything I've needed to know. If you need to know about web services and you prefer VB then this is the only book you'll need!

Together with Professional C# Web Services, also from Wrox, these books will give you a solid base to really understand Web Services and Remoting. The basics are quite simple but you will also learn some useful advanced topics. I've always liked the Wrox style of writing, I think it's easy to read and follow the code examples. The only criticism is the number of authors. Some smaller parts are repeated and the style is not always consistent.

I read the book several times. I did some of the examples. The examples worked with no changes necessary. On the [web page], the book has an errata list, which is pretty small. The source code for C# and VB are on the wrox website. This book is for EXPERIENCED programmers. Don't even try to read it if you have no prior knowledge of web services.

The book has an excellent introduction to ASP.NET for web services. It probably is worth just going over the first two chapters to get a flavor of web services. Word of caution, I downloaded the VB samples, and they were a bit buggy. If you are a C# developer, the code in the book was fine. The VB code was not...

The first few chapters teach you the basics, most of which I knew already, but it is the later chapters which are really great. The chapter on SOAP security (a subject about which I confess I knew very little) taught me everything I am ever likely to need or want to know about that subject. There's also loads of great examples to get you going. To sum up - it's great!