Visual Basic 6: Design, Specification, and Objects

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Summary: Visual Basic 6: Design, Specification, and Objects
Review: Excellent book. Of particular note are the chapters on software development issues of gathering requirements and application design. The requirements/specification discussion is the best I have ever seen, and this alone makes the book worth buying. The object oriented programming in Visual Basic 6 treatise is excellent, too.

If you are a VB6 developer, this is a "must have" book for your reference shelf.

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Summary: Easy to read and very useful
Review: I found the book easy to read, and got some pretty good ideas. The author doesn't get too long-winded in explaining things. You get a lot of benefit for your time investment.

You can tell the author has actually done this stuff - it sounds like somebody who's been there. My only complaint - the book had some good examples, but I wished there were more of them.

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Summary: Felt like a long conversation with an expert
Review: I have never seen a technical book this easy to read. Nice conversational tone, and the material just flowed well. Several times I had a question in my mind and the next paragraph answered it. It was like having a conversation with someone really experienced.

I got several tips to start using immediately - very practical stuff. I also had my manager read several chapters because this book explains why definition and design are important and save money in the long run.

The object material is good, but basic, and doesn't go far into 3 tier. If you want more details on objects, something like Lotkha's book on Business Objects in VB is a good next step. But for analysis, design, and fundamentals of objects, this book stands out.

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Summary: Disappointing
Review: I saw this book on a colleague's desk and immediately ordered a copy for myself. I should have borrowed and read it first. I expected a more thorough treatment of VB software design and specification preparation but over half of the book is just another treatise on how to program objects using VB. There are significantly better books on this topic, notably Peter Wright's and Debra Kurata's. The first few chapters of this book deal with analysis, requirements documentation, and functional specifications and are well written but the more difficult task of writing technical specs is all but ignored. It almost appears that, after expending too much effort on object programming, the author simply ran out of steam and gave only token effort to the rest of the book. He simply states that writing technical specifications is difficult and therefore is out of scope for the book. Then goes on to provide very sketchy vignettes of various design tools and techniques. I expected at least a sampling of real world document styles if not significant content. Two templates (requirements document and functional spec) are provided on the the accompanying CD but both are little more than very top level outlines (nearly identical at that) with instructions for using the templates themselves. Much better sample documents are available from Steve McConnell's web site. If you just need some passionate arguments regarding the need for upfront design and documentation then this book provides that. However, if you need some concrete examples to use to make the preparation of such documents less painful or if you need some ideas for how to go about performing these steps then you'll have to look elsewhere.

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Summary: Interesting, good read
Review: Interesting combination of analysis and design principles & methods with object oriented programming with VB. Not a detailed look at any of these three topics, but this is a well written and easy read and has some really helpful tips. The author states that he is using the 80/20 rule in covering the 20% of the material that helps with 80% of the needs. I highly recommend this book for someone just getting into programming VB, looking for some more formal methods of approaching their work.

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Summary: Read This First - Then Charge!
Review: Interesting combination of analysis and design principles & methods with object oriented programming with VB. Not a detailed look at any of these three topics, but this is a well written and easy read and has some really helpful tips. The author states that he is using the 80/20 rule in covering the 20% of the material that helps with 80% of the needs. I highly recommend this book for someone just getting into programming VB, looking for some more formal methods of approaching their work.

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Summary: Read This First - Then Charge!
Review: One of the best purchases I ever made. This book is an invaluable resource for me. It points you in the right direction for developing VB apps and objects by helping you to draw on your experiences, intellect and insight and offering his. It exposes weaknesses with VB developers and offers some real, workable, practical solutions.

Please Read This First. The tackle you next project with renewed vigor, increased insight and I'm sure, a greater probability of success.

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Summary: Outstanding! Gets right to the point without the "fluff".
Review: The most eye-opening book I have bought on Visual Basic to date! (and I own a lot of them). I found the topics to be right to the point. Billy exposes you to his years of experience as he demonstrates the most useful and important areas of each topic using his REAL-LIFE VB code from past projects. This book can have VB programmers learning new skills and improving their current programming project within the hour. Now...how many books can you say THAT about?

P.S. Reading and understanding the topics covered in this book was also the final clincher that landed me a new job working for the State of Illinois. Thanks Billy!

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Summary: Extremely Practical
Review: This book gives you a practical step by step guide to designing, specifying, and implementing a VB application. Whilst I have been a programmer since 1969 and have used various methodologies in the mainframe area, I had not come across a succinct, practical and easy to follow one for the VB environment until now. Great book!