Rating: 
Summary: Wonderful Book
Review: Because this book has introduced so many VB6 features and thoroughly explained such a broad range of useful VB6 development methods, my desire to use VB has been rekindled. I would recommend that a developer purchase this book before buying any other VB6 books.
Rating:
Summary: Great Book!!!
Review: This is the best VB Book that i have bougth!!!.
Rating: 
Summary: good but not 5 stars
Review: I just started reading this book and am on page 120. For anybody that has VB experience, this book is a treasure. I've already come across at least 10 things that will save me time in my programming. I plan to read this book from cover to cover (which I don't normally do with programming books). It is clearly written and gives reasons for doing things one way as opposed to another. For example:"Using a controlling variable of a specific object type usually offers better performance than a generic Variant or Object variable. Iterating on the elements of a collection using a For Each...Next loop is generally faster than a regular For...Next loop because the latter forces you to refer to individual elements using their numeric incdices, which is a relatively slow operation." Personally, I love this kind of information. However, in my brief examinations, the book has already shown two shortcomings: its index and its code. I've found the index to be a little skimpy at times. I've already found on a couple of occassions that it took a while to find the simple answer that I was looking for. I suppose that this is because the book was written to be more readable than as a reference book. I've also found a few things in the code that don't make sense. For example, in the function GetFiles (p.239) the variable path2 is defined (dimmed) as a string. However, this variable is never used in the function. Because this is the first snippet of code that I've examined with any detail, it kind of raises my eyebrows. I wonder what else I'm going to come across in the code. Overall, the book is very readable. I would reccommend it at an Intermediate level. The book would be perfect for anyone who has programmed some VB and is starting to get a little deeper. It would also be perfect for someone with a large amount of programming experience, but with little VB experience.
Rating:
Summary: THIS IS THE BOOK FOR INTERMEDIATE VB PROGRAMMERS
Review: This book is not for beginers, if you think so take a look at another one. In fact this is an excellent book for intermediate programmers. The book is quite clever , full of tips to improve your applications and deep explanation in real application programming. Standard control and Database programming using code, Data Environmment and ADO Controls are very well explained.
Rating: 
Summary: Too much code
Review: Even for a programmer, this book might seem overwhelming. The author delves right into programming without explaining some basic structure of VB, i.e: data types, available functions. Also, the reader is expected to understand all the code written in the book without any help from the author. The author only provides an overview of what the code does. There is very little explanation regarding the functionality of functions used from the VB library. I wouldn't recommend this book if you are a non-programmer or a beginner in programming.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent Book
Review: This is about my 6th VB book, some going back a few versions of the program. I found this book a tremendous help. I would not recommend it for a "first VB book" but for the intermediate to experienced programmer, it will certainly be hard to beat! I especially use and enjoy the "book on CD" feature in that I have instant reference to it without balancing it on my lap and it is a searchable reference.
Rating:
Summary: Great book.
Review: It is a great book with a lot of examples, but you should have some knowledge in visual basic before you start it. Some of the topics go a bit fast, but I would recommend this book to anyone that is really interested in knowing all the different features of visual basic.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent book
Review: I am an intermediate VB programmer, so I needed some help on some fundamentals (hate to use the help!) and more importantly needed some guidance in exploring the more advanced features of VB6. This is the ONE! The chapters on Databases, User Interface and ActiveX programming are the best. Hey, I am flying high now, lol. Besides the points that this is an excellent book for all VB programmers, I found there are very few errors, which is something really important. The source codes are excellent, I used some of them in my own application. One example is the HTML editor, simple to use and a good tool to test your HTML codes. Generally, I love this book and recommend all of you to buy it.
Rating:
Summary: Detailed, Complete, Accurate
Review: I've finally made it through the entire book, but I took me a year! I was basically a beginner when I started, and I must say although I hit a few walls along the way, I have come a very long way. Francesco seems to have a consistently good manner of explaining complex topics. With other technical books, I have really noticed when the author's had a good day and a bad day at writing. I found very little errors in the book. Those I did locate were trivial most of the time. Francesco offers an on-line location to obtain updates/corrections where needed. I very much like this idea! My only negative comment is the poor binding on the book. I had barely had my book 3 months, when the binding started coming apart. I am very careful with my books, and do not "man-handle" them in any way. I think the book should be split into two smaller books, or offered in a hard cover edition. It's not an inexpensive book to buy, but you won't regret it at all. I've paid as much for books not 10% as well done, or complete. I especially like the way all exercises from the book are enclosed in the accompanying CD - great when you want to spent more time learning and less time coding. Thank you Francesco for a job well done. Looking forward to your VB.Net edition!
Rating:
Summary: Wunderbach - Bravo
Review: This book is by no means a beginner's guide to VB 6. There are very many books that will get you going on the subject. If, however, you have graduated to the "Advanced Club" and are faced with a major project - and deadline - you will need a handy, desk reference that you can refer to time and again. A desk reference that will contain examples that apply to real-world situations, not "How to draw flags" type examples. And it really doesn't matter what the problem is, it could be something as obscure as syncing underlying data, or something as universal as optimising ADO access, you will find it all here. Not only is it here, it's arranged in an extremely logical and clear fashion that it's easy to quickly find the example you are looking for. As a major added bonus, there is Francesco's web site where you can post questions that may not have been addressed in the book. Although I doubt that it will come to that. Like any book, Francesco's has it's limitations, so don't expect cutting-edge Web development stuff, to do with VB 6 COM, ASP, and all that. However, even some of those subject are touched on so that you can get a head's up. IIS, DHTML, and more. My feeling is after having completed two major projects with VB6 in which I utilised every aspect of the language, plus reaching into shareware, I couldn't fault this book. It paved the way for me on many a dark day when I was struggling with complex and at times obscure code. It's a first class piece of work, by a man that truly knows his trade, and is proud of knowledge to an extent that he delivers it with style, elegance, and accuracy unmatched anywhere. Bravo Francesco. And thank you for a wonderful book.
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