Visual Basic 5 Bible

Rating:
Summary: Tops for teaching technique, insufficient for reference.
Review: Calvin Trillin once warned against eating at any deli with New York in its name; I've learned not to buy any programing language books with "days" in its title. This book employs a teaching technique I consider ideal: assume the reader knows nothing. In the hands of a clear and thoughtful writer such as Hergert, even advanced learners, who may space out occasionally, never feel talked down to. I've skimmed the sections I feel competent in and pored over the areas in which I have difficulty. In both cases, I've obtained the security of knowing that what I've learned I know thoroughly. The index is skimpy and keyword list incomplete; though you can make do with VB help, I recommend a reference book as a supplement. I use the VB Superbible (only because I bought it to use it as an instruction manual first). But as an instruction manual, I consider the VB Bible unsurpassable.

Rating:
Summary: Tops for teaching technique, insufficient for reference.
Review: Calvin Trillin once warned against eating at any deli with New York in its name; I've learned not to buy any programing language books with "days" in its title. This book employs a teaching technique I consider ideal: assume the reader knows nothing. In the hands of a clear and thoughtful writer such as Hergert, even advanced learners, who may space out occasionally, never feel talked down to. I've skimmed the sections I feel competent in and pored over the areas in which I have difficulty. In both cases, I've obtained the security of knowing that what I've learned I know thoroughly. The index is skimpy and keyword list incomplete; though you can make do with VB help, I recommend a reference book as a supplement. I use the VB Superbible (only because I bought it to use it as an instruction manual first). But as an instruction manual, I consider the VB Bible unsurpassable.

Rating:
Summary: The best on the market; for beginners through advanced
Review: The book is one of the most clear, comprehensive, and practical programming language books that I have read in my twenty years in the industry. This book is especially ideal (but not exclusive) to people making the transition from other programming languages.

Rating:
Summary: Very good
Review: This is a very good book. There's something the author could improve on in the next version. Examples in the book don't seem to encourage good programming practice. E.g., two consecutive if-blocks should be combined into one if-elseif-block for performance reason because only one IF is valid judging from the context. Some identical processing is done on the WHILE line rather than before the loop. Performance shouldn't be a concern for a beginning programmer but if it doesn't take much to teach, why not? Other than this, this is a very well written book.

Rating:
Summary: An exellent book for an beginner or a 'just started'
Review: This is an excellent book whether you are an absoloute beginer or you just want a reference book for the things you don't yet know. A recommended buy.

Rating:
Summary: Working through practical little apps is ideal learning tool
Review: You can't learn to swim by reading about it and the same goes for Visual Basic. In the end, you have to write some code. And that's often the rub. What can you develop if you have no clue about how to start? Hergert gives interesting, small apps to practice on that become increasingly more complex. My approach is to type in his code, watch the results and learn to understand the how-to's and the why's. Then I do the whole thing all over, solo. That's how I find the gaps in my understanding of the project and the language. This book is ideal. Thanks Doug!