visual basic

I've been programming for over 17 years, Basic (old time), Pascal, C, C++ and started taken a class in VB. This book was required reading by the professor. I read the book from cover to cover in 4 weeks. This book did cover a lot of different topics but each one left you wanting more. There was never a real good understanding of any topic/method/property. Some thing was always left out. So for you to attempt something other than exactly what the examples show you, you had to jump back into MSDN to find the answers. The early part of the book covers the basic syntax of VB. This was handle pretty well. But once you got into the more advanced area's it fell far short of helping you understand what was needed to actually do any work. Again back to MSDN for more help. The topic of database management was so weak that I had to buy a second book just so that I could do some practical work. The topic of OOP program was more of a joke. However I don't know if I blame this on the author or VB not being a true Object-Oriented Programming language. Coming from Pascal and C++ I'm use to true inheritance not this "interface inheritance/delegation". The author also has a bad habit of not given you enough of an outline before he dives into a subject. Understanding what the author is going to attempt to do is very valuable. Also key methods, properties, functions.. were added to examples and then not talked about until the chapter was almost over. You would see new things in the example code and have no idea what or why they were there. Some items were missed all together and again back to MSDN to find out the what/why. When trying to explain some example code the format was almost impossible to follow. Everything was bunched together with very little or no organization. Some times key issues are assumed by the author, like the first time he uses a control array in an example. Bang, your just suppose to reconginize what a control array is? I don't think so. It would have been nice to be forwarned that, "in this example I'm going to show the use of a control array using radio buttons.." I would never have bought this book if it was not assigned by the professor.

Now I will save a few good things about the book. There are alot of coding examples. Sometimes hard to follow but it does get you started. The author does cover a very wide range of topics. This hurts the book in that there isn't enough time devoted to anyone of them. However the variety is nice in that it shows the depth of VB. I didn't key in all the examples but the ones I did seem to work, with the exception of the Web Browser. I could never get that to work. The FTP, HTTP, Microsoft Agent worked first time. I didn't try the code off the CD for the Web Browser so I might have been something I did.

Again I would NOT recommend this book. I'm sure there are much better ones out there for the beginning VB programmer. The professor never even followed the book. He just used it as reference.

This is not a book with big pictures and lots of redundant information: it's packed with valuable information, extremely well structured and geared towards the needs of the beginner as well as the more advanced student. Each chapter is preceded by an introduction to the respective topic followed by programming projects exemplifying the use of commands, procedures, data types, etc. It is rounded off by concise recap of the material covered. All programming examples are supplied on the accompanying CD ROM which also includes - lo and behold! - a MS VISUAL BASIC 6.0 Working Model Edition as a FREEBIE. So you do not even have to have your own Visual Basic Programming environment in order to do all the exercises and try out the examples given in the book. Algorithms and theoretical background are supplied where necessary and just add to the fun of learning. A wealth of good tips is summarized for each chapter under the headings of "Common Programming Errors", "Good Programming Practices", "Software Engineering Observations" and "Testing and Debugging". The practical hands-on approach to programming of the book is topped off by self-review exercises at the end of each of the 21 chapters for which solutions are supplied and discussed adequately to make them a true learning experience. More challenging exercises are offered to the more ambitious student. This is one of the most instructive and comprehensive books on Visual Basic I have ever had a chance to lay my hand upon. Highly recommendable!

The authors take a subject that's not horribly difficult and make it dautingly difficult in this book. The examples they use are NOT real-world examples that anyone would understand. For example, to explain recursion, their two examples involve factorials and Fibonacci numbers. May I remind them that this is not a book on math and Visual Basic? I had to first learn what Fibonacci numbers were and then try to understand the example. I am unfortunately required to read this book as part of a class and am finding myself reading other books to try to understand what this book is saying. Also, key terms aren't in bold, and the way the book is presented is in reverse order than it should be. The process of VB programming involves first creating the user interface and then the coding behind it. They introduce the coding first and the interface in the middle of the book. I am really struggling to read this and I have a master's degree, work in this general area, and have good reading and vocabulary skills. Why they even thought this book would be applicable to anything for anyone is beyond me.