Practical Visual Basic 6

Rating:
Summary: Too many cooks spoiled this broth
Review: There is nothing "practical" about this VB book. It is a confusing mess. Chapter 1 starts out simple enough but suddenly chapter 2 starts dealing with extremely advanced activex controls and goes into VB jargon. Code samples are not explained well and some don't even work right. Those who already know VB will not have a problem following it but beginners will probably just close it after chapter 4 and give up on VB thinking they're just stupid or something.

The book makes the mistake of throwing the entire VB kitchen sink at a beginner when all they need to know is getting acquainted with syntax, gui, and a smattering of useful common controls. There are much better books out there for the rank beginner, pass by this one even if it is in the bargain bin at your bookstore.

Rating:
Summary: Too many cooks spoiled this broth
Review: There is nothing "practical" about this VB book. It is a confusing mess. Chapter 1 starts out simple enough but suddenly chapter 2 starts dealing with extremely advanced activex controls and goes into VB jargon. Code samples are not explained well and some don't even work right. Those who already know VB will not have a problem following it but beginners will probably just close it after chapter 4 and give up on VB thinking they're just stupid or something.

The book makes the mistake of throwing the entire VB kitchen sink at a beginner when all they need to know is getting acquainted with syntax, gui, and a smattering of useful common controls. There are much better books out there for the rank beginner, pass by this one even if it is in the bargain bin at your bookstore.

Rating:
Summary: Too many cooks spoiled this broth
Review: There is nothing "practical" about this VB book. It is a confusing mess. Chapter 1 starts out simple enough but suddenly chapter 2 starts dealing with extremely advanced activex controls and goes into VB jargon. Code samples are not explained well and some don't even work right. Those who already know VB will not have a problem following it but beginners will probably just close it after chapter 4 and give up on VB thinking they're just stupid or something.

The book makes the mistake of throwing the entire VB kitchen sink at a beginner when all they need to know is getting acquainted with syntax, gui, and a smattering of useful common controls. There are much better books out there for the rank beginner, pass by this one even if it is in the bargain bin at your bookstore.

Rating:
Summary: Great for beginners
Review: This book is a great starter for anyone who wants to learn the basics of VB and programming in general.

I do not recommended this book for anyone who has been working with VB for more than 6 months. There are a few intermediate to advanced topics discovered, but these are not covered in much detail.

Rating:
Summary: Beginners, stay clear of this book...
Review: This is strictly a book for beginners, as it covers only the rudimentary concepts of visual basic. You'd benefit from it if you've never written a line of code in your life. Even for total greenhorn, it's very tedious to read page after page about addition/subtraction/multiplication/division operations.

The greatest problem with this book, as with many, many other programming books, is that the authors just throw large chunks of code at you without bothering to explain why or how they work. For instance, on page 138 of the paperback edition, the author would write "Exit Sub" on line 44, without telling you why you would want to do that at that point. You WON'T find it explained in its context in the entire book. For beginners (as this book is obviously targetting at), this is plain bad practice. You'd have very many "whys" knocking around in your head, and you'd be left hopelessly lost. You'd even begin to doubt yourself, and think it's your fault, which of course it isn't. It's just bad writing.

In addition, in some cases, the authors seem to hate using the properties window, and wouldn't tell you that it may be much easier to use the properties window (for design-time properties)than writing laborious codes. The MoveIt example at page 98 illustrates my point.

Overall, I wouldn't recommend it to beginners, even though this book is written with beginners in mind. It'd put you off using visual basic, maybe forever. Try another book. There're many good ones lying around.

Rating:
Summary: The best intoductory book for VB6
Review: You've just bought VB6 so now what? Practical Visual Basic 6 that's what. It is cheaper than other books and covers usefull topics in depth, rather than try to gloss over everything. It has a language reference section which is a good thing for a begginer, and it has a CD with all the code examples - saves time typing - also includes working model VB6. A clear choice all round.