Rating: 
Summary: Excellent for Newbies, but don't expect more!!!!!!
Review: I found this to be a great start for someone who was just familar with the windows enviroment. I found it to be a little disappointing when it came to anything more than the basics though. If you are looking for a book to get your feet wet, then this is the book for you. If you are looking for something with databasing or active-X in mind, get a different book. Christopher Whitehead P.S. If you are a newbie, I would suggest buying this book first, that's why I gave it the 4 stars..
Rating:
Summary: Great book, some parts in wrong order.
Review: I own the VB 6 version of this book. I thought that overall it was great; the book offers excellent examples, esp. with the CD enclosed, it's kind of funny, in a corny sort of way, and it does a good job of explaining things in easy-to-understand english. This book is divided into two sections; the first explains how to make interfaces, and the second explains how to write the code that make the interfaces work.
Unfortunately, at the end of the first section, the author gradually slides into using a lot of BASIC code. Granted, BASIC is the only way to make some of the user interfaces, and he uses good examples. However, the author seems to have forgotten an important detail, that almost by default, the reader does not have much previous experience in BASIC. Thus, it can make things somewhat confusing when attempting to understand the construction of the menus AND deciphering the code.
In many examples later on, the author simply says something like, "In order to make so-and-so type of box, you'll need to use this..." and follows the screenshot up with several or more lines of code, without really explaining what any of the code does. Except for this apparent lapse in logical order, the book is otherwise great. Chapter 14 begins with "the basics of code", which is odd, since a lot of code had already been covered in Chapter 13.
Rating:
Summary: Great book, some parts in wrong order.
Review: I own the VB 6 version of this book. I thought that overall it was great; the book offers excellent examples, esp. with the CD enclosed, it's kind of funny, in a corny sort of way, and it does a good job of explaining things in easy-to-understand english. This book is divided into two sections; the first explains how to make interfaces, and the second explains how to write the code that make the interfaces work.
Unfortunately, at the end of the first section, the author gradually slides into using a lot of BASIC code. Granted, BASIC is the only way to make some of the user interfaces, and he uses good examples. However, the author seems to have forgotten an important detail, that almost by default, the reader does not have much previous experience in BASIC. Thus, it can make things somewhat confusing when attempting to understand the construction of the menus AND deciphering the code.
In many examples later on, the author simply says something like, "In order to make so-and-so type of box, you'll need to use this..." and follows the screenshot up with several or more lines of code, without really explaining what any of the code does. Except for this apparent lapse in logical order, the book is otherwise great. Chapter 14 begins with "the basics of code", which is odd, since a lot of code had already been covered in Chapter 13.
Rating: 
Summary: mediocre book don't buy it until you have VB 6.0 installed
Review: I picked up this book with only a minimal amount of self-taught QBasic education from around 10 years ago. I've just finished it, and only have a couple quirks: It makes mention a few times to "More Visual Basic for Dummies", a book that doesn't exist for VB6. I ripped through the first 28 chapters or so, breezing through it thanks to the nice, plain english, sometimes funny, or at least mildly humerous writing (the variable name examples are great)... then it started to bog down. Classes, Modules, Procedures, Objects.. all kinda mish-mashed together.. it looks like he was writing till the day after his deadline and needed to finish his outline. Other than these two half-issues.... The book is great... now I have a great understanding of the very basics of VB, and can start with one of the more advanced books, like SAMs, or MS.
Rating:
Summary: Not bad.. not bad at all.
Review: I picked up this book with only a minimal amount of self-taught QBasic education from around 10 years ago. I've just finished it, and only have a couple quirks: It makes mention a few times to "More Visual Basic for Dummies", a book that doesn't exist for VB6. I ripped through the first 28 chapters or so, breezing through it thanks to the nice, plain english, sometimes funny, or at least mildly humerous writing (the variable name examples are great)... then it started to bog down. Classes, Modules, Procedures, Objects.. all kinda mish-mashed together.. it looks like he was writing till the day after his deadline and needed to finish his outline. Other than these two half-issues.... The book is great... now I have a great understanding of the very basics of VB, and can start with one of the more advanced books, like SAMs, or MS.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent Starter Book
Review: I used this book, and found it very helpful to begin writing vb code. The only drawback is that it is of course covers only the basic stuff with very little background info. If you want to get started in VB, I would suggest this book to anyone.
Rating: 
Summary: For Dummies
Review: I was somewhat surprised about some of the reviews saying that is was too elementary; the title says VB for DUMMIES! I thought the book was a good starting book, but wished there were more coding involved especially in the later chapters. I was also a little put off by some of the examples that seemed a little unprofessional (refer to page 107 and 118 for examples) But overall it was a good book for the beginner.
Rating:
Summary: Great Foundation
Review: I'm actually learning how to program with this book as we speak (i'm working on a program) and this book has been of great help, but for specific reference this book is not for you. As mentioned before, if you are an ABSOLUTE beginner (never touched or designed anything on the computer and have absolutely no taste in design whatsoever) this book is outstanding, personally i've designed interfaces before using HTML and such so that part of the book prooved useless to me, but the rest of it (its all about the code!) is great, buy this book!
Rating:
Summary: Replace the lousy jokes with explanations, please
Review: If the lousy jokes were replaced with theory and explanations, this book would have been great! The book fails to explain more difficult topics in a good matter. The chapters describing Classes and Databases should have been left out or rewritten. Actually, these topics are not very difficult, but the reader makes them difficult by comparing it to dishwashers and cars, and by telling dreadfully bad jokes. Jokes are OK, but I rather read 200 pages of good explanations than 400 pages where 200 of them are rubbish.
Rating:
Summary: Very good book that is intended for beginner.
Review: If you know nothing about VB and are an absolute beginner, then I highly recommend this as your first book on the subject. Yes, it is extremely basic in terms of how much it exposes you to VB as a whole, but that's what it is intended for. And it was an easy read. At then end, you will be able to write simple programs (i.e. mortgage calculator, etc...). I used this book to get past the intimidation of learning a programming language, then I moved on. Because I am a DBA, my next purchase was the VB6 database programming for Dummies (which was a perfect continuation because this book ends on a discussion on databases). I then purchased an advanced book to help me with my MCSD which I am currently pursuing. BTW, I found the VB help to be extremely helpful as well with lots of sample code. There are also TONS of reference materials and tutorials (an example is johnsmiley.com) available on the internet. I gave this book 4 stars because.....well...just because nobody's perfect (sorry Wally). Good Luck!
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