Rating: 
Summary: Destined to be a classic
Review: I use this book in a grad level computer science class. It has so many dimentions (i.e., DB design, DB programming, User interface design, Custom Control design / tips, HTML, COOKIES, use of the Internet, exchanging data, etc.) and shows how to interweave them and how they work together that the book stands above anything I have ever read before. It ties all of the technolgy together in a very readable way.
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Summary: Finally - a book where I learn something
Review: I tip my hat to Mr. Connell. I ordered this book last week and couldnt put it down. I read into the wee hours of the morning and finished it in 3 days - cover to cover. My library contains over 40 VB and programming books. Now, when I browse books its hard to find one that gives me new information. Connell's book give me new information and techniques on just about every page. Mr. Connell is a pro and it shows that he has written tight and production quality code. In fact, the thead through the book is bullet proof UIs. I can see why many college level courses use Mr. Connell's book as the main text, as well as some VB certification classes. It's outstanding. As many other reviewers have asked - please Mr. Connell, write another book!
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Summary: This book is TERRIBLE and full of ERRORS!
Review: This book is one of the worst VB books I've ever read (and that was a dozen or so). The programming style of the writer is bad, his techniques are THE WORST (more on this below), almost none of the examples compile and run, and his GUI is from the pre-DOS days.He uses some unbelievable technique where he has 20 command buttons in a control array, and he enumerates them inside the code, and then it's a 20-step IF statement to see what was clicked by the user!! The guy should not be writing any books.
Nasty code!!
Rating:
Summary: Used for many university classes
Review: I read this book because it was used for my university class. I did a search on the web to see if I could find any reviews and was amazed at how many universities use this as the key book in their classes. Even a VB certification class uses this. I can see why - its the best programming book Ive read to date.
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Summary: Great to get to the next level of programming.
Review: I can't say enough good things about this book. Mr. Connell is a pro, wrote professional programs that are running at companies such as IBM, GM, and others. This guy knows his stuff. Besides learning more than I ever did from a single book on databases, literally each page has a tip that can be used immediately. If you are a professional programmer, you will know what I mean from the first page.
Rating: 
Summary: Save ... bucks, buy a better book
Review: This book is farily clear in the beginning, when it is introducing the general concept like jet engine and recordset. That's worth the five dollars I spent out of thirty. When it gets to the serious part of how to program, it just teaches you how to make a program inside that book, if you follow close. You won't learn how to program your own. (don't mention that there are a lot of mistakes in the codes and the codes were not written in a good style, especially when a series "if... else ... then" appear) The reasons are: 1. Claimed to be written for beginners, it omits a lot of basic concepts such as Option Explicit; You can neither make a program of your own nor can you understand programs well written by others; Some books claimed to be written for intermediate-advanced readers introduce more basic concepts and clearer. 2. The basic information like the parameters of massage box the book introduced is not organized well, you can find part of the information in page 100 and then the some in page 200. Although I remember there is a table describing it somewhere, I could not find it by both reading carefully the contents and searching in the index. 3. The index is the worst I have ever seen. It is not comprehensive at all (for the concepts to this book). Plus, it guides you to the wrong place. If you want to find out what is a tree, it guides you to a page in which a sentence " trees grow all over the world." appears. I appologize for not presenting a real example since the book is not with me now. But you can get a sense. Just don't buy this book!
Rating:
Summary: Excellent , just excellent !!
Review: I don't really know why the others don't rate the book as it should be - five stars! Are they really programmers or pretenders ? I am writing this review because I'm really impressed at what I can do now with VB programming! Imagine that one can create a SQL tester so simple with few less codes and even a maintenance program complete from data entry, find , delete and modify without heavy coding! I previously attended tutorial courses just to create applications that uses access databases, but the teaching techniques and programming techniques does not easily stick to mind until I got a hold of this book. Now I can even use our Sybase server to create applications, thanks to Mr. Connell.
Rating: 
Summary: Good beginning book
Review: Good for VB beginner. If you knows VB already, it may be too simple for you.
Rating:
Summary: 70% of all development in VB is database related.
Review: If you want to develop powerful, user friendly and reliable databases this book is a must. The book helps you plan your database structure and steps you through the process of building a fully functional application that uses many important VB features. From there, author John Connell spends a few chapters illustrating how to code the data control and build a "bulletproof" user interface to your data. Once you have some work under your belt, the author presents Microsoft's Universal Data Access (UDA) architecture. He shows how to create your own data-bound ActiveX controls and use Active Server Pages (ASPs) to fetch and return database records via a Web browser. The book finishes off this with a brief discussion into data mining and a discussion of how to export data to other applications. Microsoft estimates that 70% of all development that is done with VB is database related. If you are in VB6 development or are thinking of going into VB6 and have not read this book you have missed the boat. FinancialNeeds.com
Rating:
Summary: Great for teachers
Review: I teach VB and have found so many nuggets and gems scattered among the pages that this book has become invaluable. Even if you are not comfortable with databases, get this book for the seasoned information on developing bullet proof user interfaces. The real world tips on writing error-free code (or at least they all can get handled) is worth the price of this book alone. This book is head and shoulders above every tech book Ive read. Thanks, Mr Connell. This book brought me to a new level of programming.
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