Rating: 
Summary: No Sample Solutions to Self Review Exercises.
Review: I found this to be a potentially good book for learning Visual Basic for someone who has had experience with other languages.
However, the absence of sample solutions to the "Self-Review Exercises" at the end of each chapter turns an otherwise good book into an exercise in frustration. Many of the "Self Review" exercises go beyond what has been covered in the chapters. It would be extremely helpful in the event one is unable to code the solution to an exercise, to be able to review sample code, learn from it and move on. The accompanying CD's and Website downloads offer no assistance. They are simply a mirror copies of the chapter project solutions already printed in the book and do not provide solutions to the "Self-Review" exercises. The absence of the "Self-Review" solutions, in my opinion, reduced this book from a 4 star rating to 2.
Rating: 
Summary: This book satisfied all my VB 6 needs
Review: I had read the author's book on Java, and have met one of the brothers and spoken to him at a conference. I have been completely satisfied with this book. I use it for a reference book. I do not recall any question I've had whose answer I could not find in this book. The O'Reilly book on VB is also a very good reference book.
Rating: 
Summary: If you are a real beginner DON'T BUY IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Review: I am not a programmer, but I wanted to learn how to program in Visual Basic. I took a class and we supposed to use this book. But, we didn't. Because it is not a book for beginner. May be it is OK for programmers who want to learn a new language, but if you are new to programming - stay away!!! Even teacher said it is an advance VB, and he was giving us a material from his book. If you want to buy a good intro to VB book - get a "An Introducton to programming using Visual Basic 5.0" third edition. ... excelent!
Rating:
Summary: Not a good read without some outside help.
Review: I thought this book would launch me from my former enjoyment of Microsoft Basic programming endeavors into the fascinating world of object- oriented programming. I found it unfriendly and was sorry that its inability to lead one into new territory really required a knowledgeable guide or teacher. The CD which came with my copy would not boot on my PC, so that resource was unavailable and no help was forthcoming from the publisher despite many calls. This purchase was a... mistake.
Rating:
Summary: Add to the Reject Pile
Review: Poorly organized and poorly presented, if you're new to programming this is not the book for you. Much like a disorganized instructor, the lack of focus and coherence was a constant frustration throughout this book. Typically, in an introductory text a topic will be defined, explained, then presented by example. This is not just good teaching practice, but also creates a structure that can be used to create a usable and efficient index -- something invaluable for a begginner. Unfortunately, this book does neither. The general trend in the presentation of material in this book is to simply drop in long snippets of code, followed by a rambling discussion on the topic of interest. This technique left me constantly attempting to parse the code example to make sense of what the author was talking about. And not surprisingly, the index is also very poor. If you look up a topic and go the page reference, it's likely you'll find yourself dropped into the middle of another rambling discussion, forcing you to backtrack and foretrack through the text. Lastly, the authors do a poor job of introducing topics conceptually. For example, the section on Control Structures pretty much just dives in to code using various techniques without ever attempting to explain, to a reader with a beginners perspective, what a control structure is and in what types of situations you would want to use them. If you're looking for a first book in VB and you're new to programming, save yourself some heartache and major bucks--don't get this book. There are several others head and shoulders above this one.
Rating:
Summary: Great Stuff!
Review: This book was required for my Visual Basic programming course. As a novice programmer, I must say that its an excellent way to get started on VB. The "Good Programming Practices" and "Common Programming Errors" commentary littered throughout the text was very useful. As a textbook, its great. As a beginners guide to VB, its also great! If you're looking to get started on unlocking the secrets of VB, get this book!
Rating:
Summary: Not for the beginner, at least
Review: If you want to learn VB, don't buy it. It will make you confuse and give you a lot of trouble. They must be the expert in this area. However, they absolutely failed to teach me VB. Especially if you are the novice like myself, I recommend you to buy other books. Their description is not very clear. Many of examples did not work. You can buy the better book with less money.
Rating:
Summary: Great book for serious programming learner.
Review: If you are serious on learning Visual BASIC programming, this would be the best book with full of examples and exercises. I can't find other beginner VB book with this much depth and breadth. If you don't plan to go deep on programming, Visual BASIC Professional Step by Step may be a book for you to consider.
Rating:
Summary: Needs better explaination of methods/properties
Review: 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.
Rating: 
Summary: This book is basically a manual of VB6.
Review: I bought this book without hesitation bacause I like their C++ book. Now, I find I was wrong. I spent about a month reading this book and I have went through 16 chapters without much troubles. I know C and C++, and Vb is supposed to be easier ( I still believe so.). But after a month of reading, I have to recognize that I have not got the key to VB programming. The biggest problem of this book is : it loads you with tons' of functions of VB6, like a VB6 manual, but it overlooks the most important thing: show you the approach of VB6 programming, or the way of thinking. Before reading each example in this book, my habit is to think about the problem myself first and then compare my thought with the book. My trouble is that sometimes I do not have an approach. There are a lot of information unnecessary in this book for a self-learning VB beginner. For example, (1) section 8.17 uses 14 pages just to show you various formats of Date and Time. (2)In page 383, the author is eager to show you all 16 pen colors of DrawMode in a table. As a VB learner, nobody is interested in the dozen of Date and Time formats and 16 different color constants. What really matters is how to find it when I need it. That is why I say it is more like a VB6 manual than a self-learning tool. There are numerious places where the author shows you complete VB constants/functions. What it lacks is VB programming approach. In a word, this book shows everything in a VB6 manual, but NOT VB How to Program.
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