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Summary: Paul Sheriff Strikes Again
Review: As a friend of Paul's I know his work, and this is his best stuff. Paul's approach in the book is the same as he uses in real life. This means you are getting the same training as if Paul was sitting there teaching you as he has thousands of other VB programmeres. The one thing that makes a book or training for me is, did I learn something new or a quick way to do some old routine. Every time with Paul the answer is yes. Go ahead and learn from the man that trains the best.
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Summary: Bravo Paul!
Review: Easy to read, very much recommended for any beginning VB programmer. Doesn't contain pages and pages of code, but small code-examples which can be used in your own apps with little or no change.
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Summary: The Most Lucid Intro
Review: Had some familiarity with VB, but found this intro text to be the clearest of the many I had perused. VERY well written. I'm moving on to his Keystone "Power Developer" (#9-17) CDs. Just wish Mr. Sheriff had written an acompanying text for those CDs.
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Summary: One of the best VB 6 books.
Review: I have been doing strictly back-end programming for over a year now, and just recently got a job as VB/SQL developer. I needed to come up to speed fast, so I bought a VB 6 book. It was horrible, and full of wordy explanations that were too much to read. So I had to get a new one, and I came to Amazon and found this book, and I have to agree with most of the other readers. This is a trully a good programming book, and one of the best written that I have come across through going to school and working. It is well written, easily understood, and the author has great examples to go along with it. I think this book is worthy of 5 stars even though the binding is not so great, and there are typos. However, the main content/theme of the book is sound and I think very accurate. Enjoy!
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Summary: As someone with no coding experience, I'd say it's solid.
Review: I've never taken a programming class, and I've never picked up a programming book before. I was checking out the Smiley books down at the B & M stores, but they seemed to be a little too fluffy for me. I like the idea of code you can look at and concepts presented to you in a logical manner, and this books seems to do a pretty good job of that.My only complaint is the example code sometimes uses stuff you don't learn until later on, which I find very confusing because I like to understand the entire page before i turn to the next one. But once you run into the formally introduced code down the road, it makes a bit more sense. But on the VB scene as a whole, I'd have to say that the books are pretty easy to read, but starting from scratch is a much more daunting task. The only reason I'm learning is to debug, so I'm probably going to have to go out and get some VBA books and some reference materials (probably an o'reilly nutshell book).
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Summary: Excellent Book!
Review: This book fits exactly for someone like me - a recent graduate with two semesters in VB 5.0 who knows basic programming, yet still needs to learn a great deal more that is not written on a "dummies" level or that is way over my head. I have picked up a lot of little snippets that I did not previously know in the earlier chapters in addition to greatly expanding my VB knowledge in the later chapters. This book is extremely easy to read and explains everything very well. The price of this book is a good deal also, most computer books cost an arm and a leg and are nowhere near as good as this one. Very good job Mr. Sheriff.
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Summary: Excellent book
Review: This book got me started on my path to becoming a VB Developer. I now have an application on the market, and people love it! Thanks, Paul!
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Summary: Awesome intro and reference on VB6
Review: This book is my Bible for Visual Basic. I used it to learn VB and continue to use it as a reference. I really like the author's style. Just the right amount of info for a real developer to write VB code. I highly recommend it. It's the only book I have for VB.
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Summary: Don't get this book if you can help it
Review: This book was one of the first books I bought when I started learning VB 1.5 years ago. It looked easy and beginnerish as most codes were very short. I also liked its clear layout and its fresh-looking cover. However, the numerous shortcomings of this book only became apparent to me when I started working on the book. First, the typos. Well, this problem has plagued so many computer books these days that it's almost a given. I'm not too bothered by it if it's not too serious. Second, the author misses a number of key issues. One topic that's completely left out is sequential/random/binary file processing. It appears that Paul is in a great rush to get to the more advanced topic that he glosses cover many issues important to novice. He hasn't covered many issues with sufficient depth (eg arrays). Many times, his writing reads a lot like a catalog of what's available (and a very brief catalog at that). Third, some areas are badly explained. For example beginners will have a hard time understand the chapter on procedures and functions. I read it 5 times and still came away confused. Fourth, the 'project'- "Employee Information" - is not well-developed. He works on it a little, abandons it, and picks it up again a few chapters later. The author's halfheartedness leaves readers wondering whether it's worth their time following it through. Even at the end of the book the project looks half-baked, and is anything but useful. Fifth, he doesn't offer his reader too much to work on. Not a lot of exercises at the end of chapters. Sixth, the MAJOR problem (at least it was for me) - he jumped into advanced topics too quickly and too deeply. I was doing fine with this book up to chapter 11 (despite its problems), where he covered the basics. However the next thing I knew he threw me from a baby pool into the Pacific Ocean. Chapter 12's about ADO data control. I read it so many times I lost count, yet I couldn't relate the topic to the first 11 chapters. I couldn't understand the gazillion of terms he threw at me. Chapter 13 was worse. From chapter 12 onwards, he lost me. Since then, I've had better luck with other books. I realize now that it's Paul's problem, not mine. His writing needs a lot more work. I find programming books a veritable mine field. A weak book like this could put a reader off from learning about programming, if he's not persistent. Even good review entries here won't guarantee you a good book. Many reviewers base their ratings on first impressions. There are also reviewers who are (coincidentally) friends, colleagues, students, relatives, or enemies of the author. So please take these reviews with a pinch of salt. Me? I'm just a disgruntled reader :)
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Summary: Buy It!
Review: This is definitely a book that would appeal to the rank beginner. Other Visual Basic books throw you to the lions in terms of information overload. Sheriff's instruction style is gradual and paced. The book also has a very low price compared to other similar works. They don't get any better than this.
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