Rating: 
Summary: Emm.. A bit poor
Review: In all fairness to the author this is a good book if you are new to the development scene. The publishers and the author do fail some of us by suggesting that this book is VB 6 orientated. Its not! What you do have is a general VB reference manual that is very simplistic and does not tackle any issue in depth. Unfortunately if you are looking for OLEDB, COM/DCOM or SQL Server interfacing using ADO/RDO then look elsewhere - these issues are not covered. Not for the pro's amongst us!
Rating:
Summary: Dissapointed.
Review: it only helped as much as help index that came with the VB software. not enough detail or explanation to really learn each function in detail( or useable level). basically it comes down to ....how to execute C++ from VB... look page 1234 page 1234: here is the sample code. copy this code to visual C. copy this code to VB. that's it! next!
Rating: 
Summary: To Serve VB Programmers
Review: Its a COOKBOOK!!! I use this gem while coding. It takes me a minute to find what I need and a few minutes more to apply the sample code to my project. I saw critics whining that this book is neither a tutorial nor a specialty book. Right. If you want to see quick examples that demonstrate how-to, this is a great book. It makes me look like a senior programmer.
Rating:
Summary: Good-- Definitely not great.
Review: My two main complaint with this book are organization & the topics covered. The way the book is structured, you *must* check the index or TOC. Instead of providing thumb tabs for each chapter, there is just a black strip down the entire page edge, so it's unnecessarily difficult to find what you need through scanning the pages. Also, the chapters seem to have been placed almost randomly-- There are three chapters on graphics, but there are several chapters that fall between the first & second. Even though the later chapters cover more advanced topics, they would be more useful if all three chapters appeared consecutively so you can quickly find the general topic, then browse for your solution. As far as the topic choices, my complaint is that there is too much space devoted to basic topics-- 2.5 pages to the various move commands for *EACH* ADO, DAO & RDO, plus 1.5 pages for the data control. Since these topics are all virtually identical, why not cover them all together, & only point out any cases where the implementation may be different. And of course the flip-side of this is that there is little or no coverage of some more advanced topics-- there's not even a mention of ANY variant of the Find method (except the Rich Text Box version-- useless for data access). The information in this book is definitely useful, provided that what you're looking for is there. But since it covers little that the documentation doesn't, & it's much easier to find what you're looking for in the docs, I have trouble recommending it-- even though I hate MS's new documentation viewer.
Rating: 
Summary: Somewhat disappointed
Review: Particularly after reading many of the rave reviews here, I have been somewhat disappointed with the Black Book. I was surprised, for example, to see virtually no coverage or explanation of the printer object. Also, in the section on File Handling, the requirement for the FreeFile function is covered as kind of an afterthought (as a tip). The above are merely examples. Clearly the book provides lots of helpful information; but in my view, some material is given disappointedly short shrift. For $50, I was expecting more. Although it's quite a bit more a beginner's book and doesn't provide nearly the breadth of the Black Book, I found "Paul Sheriff Teaches Visual Basic" to be well done and a far better value at $20. A similar book, and somewhat more comprehensive, is "VB6 From the Ground Up" -- probably the best beginner's book I've seen.
Rating:
Summary: High Level and Lots of it.
Review: Perfect book if you need high level information. It covers just about all the topics. I learn well from books like this, except that there are places were I whish there was more delail. I use it as a reference book. Why the 3 starts then? Buying the book I expected to gain learn tricks and clever ways to do things but that wasn't the case... The book serves as a reference.
Rating:
Summary: Great refrence tool for VB6 users!
Review: Personally I use this book day in and day out. I find it indispensable for finding out ways to do things in Visual Basic that I previously did not know how to do. It is well laid out and easy to follow, two things to look for when buying a programmers refrence. Without this book at my side everyday it is doubtful I could complete projects in the time that I do. Great book that should be on every programmers bookshelf.
Rating: 
Summary: A valuable resource guide for VB6
Review: The Black Book is an excellent resource guide for VB6 programming. Note that this is not the type of material you would simply sit down and read. The author has tried to cram as much material as possible into "just-the-facts-and-a-quick-demo" style chunks. This means that you generally need to know what it is you are looking for in the first place. What makes it so great is that you can find an example and an explanation of most any type of control or process that you need, quickly and clearly. The author has even gone a step further, demonstrating such things as image manipulation and ActiveX development. ActiveX documents and DHTML are also covered. This book is not for beginners, but intermediate to advanced users will enjoy it's brevity and depth.
Rating: 
Summary: A Totally Useless Book
Review: This book contains nothing you can't find elsewhere. When I have a VB problem I consult my various books and have never found anything of use in this book. It is just a rehash of the same stuff available anywhere. I am baffled by the reviews that praise this book. It is useless.
Rating:
Summary: Doesn't cover topics thoroughly enough to be useful
Review: This book covers it all- a wide range of topics indeed. Unfortunately this "Indispensable Problem Solver"'s coverage is never in-depth enough to actually solve any problems! In almost all cases, I'm able to get more specific and detailed info from the online help included with VB.
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