Rating: 
Summary: The best go-to book on my programming shelf
Review: This is the best reference book I've found for working Visual Basic programmers. It assumes that you already have some knowledge of the language. If you want to learn VB, or want to explore a particular object/theory/control in some depth, look elsewhere. If you want an example of how to code such-and-such a thing, you'll like the (mostly) real-world examples and code snippets. This is the one I pull off the bookshelf when I get bogged down in code. Let's hope there's going to be a VB.NET Black Book next year.
Rating: 
Summary: Best All-Around VB Ever
Review: This is undoubtedly one of the best VB books I have ever had the pleasure of reading. Although maybe a bit too much of a reference for beginners (sorry guys), if you are a VB programmer with a decent amount of experience, this is the book for you. I couldn't be happier with it.
Rating: 
Summary: Extremely shallow....
Review: This is, without question, the most simplistic coverage of Visual Basic I have ever seen. Both the publisher and the author should be ashamed of themselves. They rushed to get this book out before VB6 was released and consequently many VB6 functions are not covered in this book. It looks as if the author just re-hashed the help file that comes with VB6 - only the help file is actually more complete than this book!Each chapter starts with a few paragraphs called "In Depth" which must be a joke - it is ANYTHING but in depth! After you flip the page of this "in depth" information you are presented with riveting single-line code snippets like how to set the start up state of a form. If you can't go to the properties box and left-click on the start up state, then this book was made for you. Everything about this book is misleading - from the title to the table of contents. They should have named it the "Pink Book". You have been warned. And Holzner, I'll be much more careful about buying any book with your name attached to it in the future!
Rating:
Summary: Good REFERENCE Book - the operative word is REFERENCE
Review: Visual Basic 6 Black Book is intended to be a reference book. As a reference book, it does the job wonderfully. I think that some of the people on here are not giving this book a good review because I believe that they were intending on using this book as a how-to. A few evenings a week, I am an IT professor for a local university (by day, I'm a software engineer), and I highly recommend this book to my VB students as a REFERENCE book, not as a HOW-TO book. For the beginners learning VB, check out either the Visual Basic books from Course Technologies publishing or the Visual Basic books from WROX press. I do agree that this book does not give much detail on database programming. Visual Basic is often used for PC-based applications with databases. Maybe for the next edition, there will be more on database programming. Again, I recommend the books from WROX press for serious database programming, and I also recommend books from Microsoft Press for VB programming with SQL Server. For "freebie" information, check out Microsoft's MSDN site for serious database programming information. I am actually purchasing this book again because a student in one of my previous classes stole my original copy (c'est la vie!).
Rating:
Summary: Good REFERENCE Book - the operative word is REFERENCE
Review: Visual Basic 6 Black Book is intended to be a reference book. As a reference book, it does the job wonderfully. I think that some of the people on here are not giving this book a good review because I believe that they were intending on using this book as a how-to. A few evenings a week, I am an IT professor for a local university (by day, I'm a software engineer), and I highly recommend this book to my VB students as a REFERENCE book, not as a HOW-TO book. For the beginners learning VB, check out either the Visual Basic books from Course Technologies publishing or the Visual Basic books from WROX press. I do agree that this book does not give much detail on database programming. Visual Basic is often used for PC-based applications with databases. Maybe for the next edition, there will be more on database programming. Again, I recommend the books from WROX press for serious database programming, and I also recommend books from Microsoft Press for VB programming with SQL Server. For "freebie" information, check out Microsoft's MSDN site for serious database programming information. I am actually purchasing this book again because a student in one of my previous classes stole my original copy (c'est la vie!).
Rating:
Summary: A book to live by. ;)
Review: Well I have programming experience but am rather new to Visual Basic itself. Though not the smartest person in the world, I find this book to so very helpful in most all I do concerning VB. I am constantly looking up things and finding them in no time and understanding the terms rather easily. It has an "Immediate Solution" index at the begining of the book as well as at the start of each chapter that I find very helpful, and I wish that other authors would incorporate into their books a structure of this nature. Overall, I would have to say that this particular book has helped me, and is continuing to help me everyday, more than any other book I have read about VB6. In my oppinion, it is a wonderful, wonderful reference and resource to have. Rick
Rating: 
Summary: Poor organization
Review: Well, the books has got a bunch of information... it may get more info than other books and cover things such as serial port communications which you may not find in some books. But the material is so poorly organize and poorly presented. Worst of all, it's not complete in areas that it covers. For example, you can't really write a program that reads and writes to the serial port continuously by reading this only this book. It can't even tell you different ways to declare an array in one page. It goes all over the places. The example source code never have comments next to them....so you may not even know how comments are writeen in VB...I mean not that it's difficult to find this out, but this is how poorly the book is written. You probably can find a much better book. I don't know much about books on VB, but know books on C and C++ where authors do a much better job in explaining and orginizing materials. Look for a different book.
Rating:
Summary: THE BOOK YOU SHOULD'NT BUY FOR VB 6.0 by Steven Holzner
Review: When buying this book I had assumed it to a pure form of Visual Basic, I have found other "Black Book" titles to be a great reference and also a great starting point. However this book, well how can I say, lacked a point. I found myself half way through the cut, copied, and edited version of msdn's reference manual, that Steven Holzner happened to call a "Black Book" around chapter 7 I found that he was just starting to mention a simple checkbox. I don't believe that anyone needs a book this dull or a book this slow. If your in the mood to search through endless pages in the form of any second rate edited extensive reference manual, then you can have fun blowing your pay check.
Rating:
Summary: THE BOOK YOU SHOULD'NT BUY FOR VB 6.0 by Steven Holzner
Review: When buying this book I had assumed it to a pure form of Visual Basic, I have found other "Black Book" titles to be a great reference and also a great starting point. However this book, well how can I say, lacked a point. I found myself half way through the cut, copied, and edited version of msdn's reference manual, that Steven Holzner happened to call a "Black Book" around chapter 7 I found that he was just starting to mention a simple checkbox. I don't believe that anyone needs a book this dull or a book this slow. If your in the mood to search through endless pages in the form of any second rate edited extensive reference manual, then you can have fun blowing your pay check.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent all inclusive reference book for beginner to pro
Review: When you need to know how to do anything in Visual Basic 6, this book delivers immediate results. Even if you are new to programming, you will find the author conveys even the most complex instructions in exceptionally easy to understand and grasp language in a record short time. You won't be dissapointed.
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