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Summary: Beginning Visual Basic 6 Database Programming
Review: I am a beginner with Visual Basic, and have several beginning books which ground a newcomer to the Visual Basic IDE, controls, etc. BUT...this is the book...the absolute Bible to really get a handle on the raw power of Visual Basic. I recommend that you use the beginner books to find out what happens when you push the buttons, learn Strings, and Loops, etc. When you think you're ready to really begin programming...THIS is THE book! Mr Connell is an absolute master. Maybe I didn't always get what he said the first time around, but I returned and there it was...right before me. I love learning about the DAO control...it is awesome! When I finish my projects using this control...I'll move into ADO. All I can say, is that I can not recommend this book ENOUGH! John, I know writing books is hard work...but give us another...PLEASE!!
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Summary: Solid, real world blocking and tackling
Review: I agree with the other reviewers - Mr. Connell's book is not only easy, but fun to read. Like an expert craftsman, he is able to make the complicated seem easy. The database normalization, use of controls, building dbs from scratch, using ADO, cookies, ASP, the internet, bullet-proof UIs, and expert tips were wonderful. On top of that - near the end when the reader is ready he illustrates how to build a working 'expert system' using the database provided by MS. I never realized that you could analyze data so completely with so little effort. I believe that I learned more from this single book than the last fifteen or so I have read. For what it's worth, as a professional software developer - I recommend this book.
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Summary: great book...old school techniques
Review: Don't get me wrong..this was a great book. I actually finished it faster than all my other books due to its readability. I do have a few critical things to say about it though. My number one problem with it was that it is mostly a book about DAO. It doesn't even start with ADO until chapter 11. So, I couldn't use any of the cool DAO stuff with any of my Access 2000 databases or with SQL. That can mostly be blamed on Microsoft though. Other than that, it is an awesome book because it teaches you how to use so many different things as far as designing the user interface is concerned. The only additional problem I seen was the way it jumped from a simple GUI to some advanced coding techniques within a matter of one chapter. Guys like me could have used one more chapter to get up to speed. Final analysis: Buy this book! It is worth the money for the reusable code alone and the help on using the treeview control and many others. A sure winner!
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Summary: An excellent starter to programming databases
Review: First, let me say that if you expect to develop high end databases and/or .com strength ASP's, after reading this book you will be disappointed.However, as an introductory book to Visual Basic and Databases it is outstanding. What is most impressive is that it covers a lot of topics and (DAO, ADO, ASP, SQL, etc) explains them quite well (for example, it explains WHY we have ADO). There are a couple minor mistakes in the books mainly because it was written before the actual release of VB6. But for the most part, it is solid base for serious VB programming. Yes, it could've been improved upon (and I hope the new version will have the technology updates), but after examining many of the other books out there, the WROX model is one of the best (Assmues you know little, plently of code/screenshots and explains what they do, anticipates questions, doesn't spend too much time on programming methods, but syntax, etc.)
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Summary: Excellent beginner VB Database book!
Review: This is an excellent beginner VB database book. If you have read a beginner VB book, then it is now time to tackle database programming in VB. After all, almost all VB applications are database driven. Therefore, good solid knowledge of VB database programming is a definite must. John Connell's book is very clearly written, well organized, and tailored to beginners in VB database programming. The book gives beginners the confidence they will need to tackle more complex database issues in the future. It provides many helpful code snippets and snapshots which a beginner will greatly appreciate. I wasted no time adding the book to my list of favorite VB database books on the VisualBasicBooks web site.
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Summary: I keep going back to this one
Review: I purchased this book about 1 yr ago. Over that time, I've lent it to friends, and purchased a few for workmates. But today, I found myself reaching for Connell's book again and realized that this book as been an important single source of information for me for quite some time. So I checked out the Amazon reviews and saw that most others feel the same way - well I just had to write a review. If you are looking for a single source of tips and sugestions, clear concepts, and how to write bullet proof ui's - this is THE book. I've read them all - this is far and away the best of the bunch.
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Summary: Not bad...
Review: Even though I have been playing around in VB for some time, I always go back to begining books. You always find some little tip or trick, that you haven't heard of which you find useful. In this book there are quite a few. However, some problems are that the book has quite a good chunk of errors in it BUT... the publishers web site does have downloadable code and explanation of the errors. Only beef is that I have yet to see the book make a SOLID bullet proof example. In this book you can see that he doesn't cover all the problems that can occour with an app, (you can tweak it yourself I suppose). But hey, if you are trying to teach someone how to make an interface make it BULLET PROOF so that when u go into industry you can do it right, not half way! Good coverage with the subject, but could have been better and the book is not a total loss with a lot of useful info.
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Summary: WROX Has Done it Again
Review: I checked out several books on VB6 trying to get information on VB6 and Database programming. Having had good experiences with WROX books in the past, I tried this one. Excellent! The way it's written it's easy to follow as well as NOT boring. The way the book is written, information in earlier chapters is built on in later chapters. It's a good reference tool as well. It's like a tutorial as well as a reference book all in one. It's easy to go back and review something because of the way the information has been layed out. The only part I couldn't find was information for connectivity, for a compiled program, to a database if it's been moved. Other than that, it's the best of the 8 (yes 8) books that I looked at... the other 7 were returned.
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Summary: Beginning VB 6 Database Programming (my thoughts)
Review: The author writes in such a style that I believe he is honestly excited about Database's which is good however is a bit tiresome after a while. Additionally the author goes to lenghts to show how to build various databases however skips explanations of some of the commands shown until much later chapters. The SQL queries left me scratching my head slightly until I made it a bit further. The author apparently has written the book for someone who is truly a beginner to VB however puts off the explanation of Forms and Event Driven language features until the 4th chapter. Fortunately I am far from a beginner and could follow his wishes even if the explanations were on occasion lacking. A beginner however might be overwhealmed. This is not to say I dont recommend the book, I just wish it had been flow charted before he wrote it heck maybe some good psuedo code might have done the trick. Bottom line good book somewhat lacking tutorial structure.
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Summary: Used with great success in my college class
Review: I teach computer science at a college in down state Illinois. It's always difficult job to get the cirruculum book selection committee to approve of a new text. The other CS teacher and I selected and recommended Dr. Connell's book after rigerous due dilligence. We examined every other VB book on the market. Interestingly enough, we both came to the same conclusion and each independantly selected this book! It was ultimately approved by the committee last year and we both used the text. After full semester classes by both myself and the other instructor - we compared notes and were very pleasantly surprised at the student responses. Typically students are luke warm about the textbook used in class. However, this book got them excited to learn and it was universally ranked as number one. Anyway - I intend to use this book again next semester. If you want a profesisonal, easy to read, packed with informaton book - I recommend Dr. Connell's database book.
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