Pros: Well laid out, Touches many Topics, Easy to pick up and learn instantly, Good reference
Cons: Not really a learn to program VB book, Doesn't do much topics thoroughly
The Bottom Line: Recommended book for any beginner needing to do a VB program but doesn't intend to learn every thing in the language. Great Reference book.
adamadi's Full Review: Microsoft Visual Basic 6.0 Professional Books
Hear my scenario. I had two weeks to make a database program in Visual Basic. I am not a programmer though I do have experience with other programming languages like Python and Pascal. I decided to run out and pick up a book, hopefully one that I can use as a reference instead of having to read an entire book. This is what I got with Microsoft Visual Basic 6 Step by Step.
Actually, I went to Amazon and picked up three books, this one, Learn to program Visual Basic 6 (http://adamadi.epinions.com/book-review-77E9-4FD30E5-39D3AD0F-prod1) and Microsoft Visual Basic 6 Programmers Guide. Out of the three, this was the best although the Learn to Program VB 6 was rated best at Amazon.
First off, I should say that Visual Basic is actually extremely simple, its more like doing a Powerpoint presentation than writing a program. The entire interface is very simple, its an excellent beginner programming language. Powerful visual basic programs take up a few lines of code, most of the work is done in setting up the interface and other settings.
Anyway, compared to the other 2 books, this book is not one which you can really sit down and read through. The chapters that follow each other do not flow into each other, but I think this was the intention by the authors. The book is 632 Pages long, with 24 Lessons divided into 5 parts of the book. The book also includes a CD which includes all the test files and examples throughout the chapters.
The book starts off by introducing users to Visual basic. This is basically an explanation of all the buttons on the Visual Basic program interface. The book doesn’t really explain the concept of programming, that is algorithms and whatnot. If you are looking for an introduction to programming itself, this book would not be your ideal choice.
Below I am going to list all the Lessons in the book I hope to help those who are wondering what the book actually teaches.
Part 1 - Getting Started with Visual Basic
Lesson 1 – Opening and Running a Visual Basic Program
Lesson 2 – Writing your First Program
Lesson 3 – Working with controls
Lesson 4 – Working with Menus and Dialog Boxes
Part 2 - Programming Fundamentals
Lesson 5 – Visual Basic Variables and Operators
Lesson 6 – Using Decision Structures
Lesson 7 – Using Loops and Timers
Part 3 - Creating the Perfect User Interface
Lesson 8 – Working with Forms, Printers and Error Handlers
Lesson 9 – Adding Artwork and Special Effects
Part 4 - Managing Corporate Data
Lesson 10 – Using Modules and Procedures
Lesson 11 – Working with Collections and Arrays
Lesson 12 – Exploring Text Files and String Processing
Lesson 13 – Managing Access Databases
Lesson 14 – Connecting to Microsoft Office
Part 5 - Professional Edition Tools and Techniques
Lesson 15 – Word Processing with the Rich Textbox Control
Lesson 16 – Displaying Progress and Status Information
Lesson 17 – Integrating Music and Video with the Multimedia MCI Control
Lesson 18 – Beyond Visual Basic: Using the Windows API
Part 6 - Internet Programming Fundamentals
Lesson 19 – Downloading Files with the Internet Transfer Control
Lesson 20 – Displaying HTML Documents with Internet Explorer
Lesson 21 – Designing Dynamic HTML Pages for the Web
Lesson 22 – Adding ToolBox Elements and ActiveX Controls to DHTML Pages
Part 7 - Advanced Database Programming
Lesson 23 – Managing Data with the FlexGrid Control
Lesson 24 – Exploring ActiveX Data Objects (ADO)
Okay, from the list of chapters, you can notice that the scope of this book is limited. It touches a little bit of every topic though no topic is done in full detail. This is an excellent reference book, for people doing simple programs. All the chapters have a quick reference section which recaps everything taught in the chapter. That’s what I love about this book. If I don’t know how to do a certain thing, I can flip to a page and figure out how to do it instantly without having to read through a lot of text.
The CD is also an excellent resource. Although it lacked an autorun file to browse the CD, it had all the examples with their source code. This was ideal for me because I needed to borrow some code to paste in my program. The book is also well laid out because the entire book is designed for beginners. Even the font is rather big. All lessons are split up into different tasks which it attempts to teach, and it does it in step format. There are also tip boxes which provide some extra ideas for the given task.
When the book explains property settings, they use a table, with Object, Property and Setting headers. This makes it easy to glance at to figure out which property you need to change. Actually, all things, let it be variables to activeX controls are displayed in a table format.
I consider this an excellent reference text for people in a jam. After reading most of this book, I won’t consider myself a VB expert, but I did get my project finished. I think the title Step by Step is inappropriate, it should be “ A beginners reference. “ The topics the book teaches are taught well though, but not to intuitive for a person considering using this book as a base book to advance to other books. This is a handy book to have lying around, just incase you happen to have a Visual basic project to do.
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