Customer Reviews

Advanced Microsoft Visual Basic (Mps)

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

This book has a few good chapters in it "On Error GoToHell" - on errors, "Minutiae" on compiler options andother usually overlooked Visual Basic optimizations, "Well, at Least it compiled OK!" on testing, "Starting With Bases Loaded" on base code, "Mixing Languages with Visual Studio" and "Didn't I Write That Function Last WeeK?" on code reuse. I didn't read the chapters on IIS, databases and CE (if I wanted a book about these subjects, I would buy one). The most surprising chapters dealt with enterprise development and "How to Find, Recruit, and Retain Great Developers" which were just plain out of scope. TMS authors' should write about VB6 in a VB6 book. Those chapters should be elsewhere - maybe a management book. I also did not like the Accessibility in Visual Basic chapter which dealt with making your programs for disabled people. Also, the dating and programming with variant chapters were frivolous and not "advanced" at all.

Most of the content in the book tries to examine the dissection of a programmer's knowledge as taken up by an employer and it is difficult for a hardcore programmer guy to swivel and adapt to the entirely new viewpoint. The reader could more often be gathering tips as to what a good developer should or should not do.

Some parts of the book present radical new ideas but on the whole are supported by very little example code which is mostly what a programmer understands. On the whole the book is good - only the developer will have to place himself for once in a totally different seat and take to the content in a different angle.

This book seems to be a lot about nothing. Don't get me wrong, some of the chapters were ok, like the On Error GOTO Hell, and the appendix on coding conventions. But, if you're looking for someting to teach you how to do something in VB, forget it.

There are unrelated and unorganized chapters written by different authors. The book is actually about "software development". The authors express their experience. Also titles are so funny some examples :"Here Be Dragons","Dancing in Step","Using Smoke and mirors" etc.I am sorry that I bought this book.

One of the few books I've bought that I'll probably not refer back to again. This book needed a strong editor to turn competent programmers into good writers. The book rambled aimlessly, not really giving a hint as to where they were going or why one piece of info related to another. I know we all need our 15 minutes of fame, but each chapter's autobiographical data was a little over the top.

This book is good reading if you don't think you are getting a 'technical reference' to aid you in using the advanced features of VB6. There are so many witty comments in this book, it seems it would be sitting on a coffee table rather than next to your workstation. These are the writings of self-praising individuals who refer to "we at TMS" more times than one can count. This book is definately not for those who are seeking books that explain how things work at a deeper level in VB6, and discussions on advanced features are not very well expanded. It is far too dificult to muddle though the jibberish to find what you are looking for. The title shold be "How TMS uses Visual Basic 6."

More of a 'Special Topics' book. Don't expect to run through an introductory book and right into this one. Though the first chapter has some useful suggestions for handling bugs.

If your looking for technical information on the How's and Why's of VB6 this is not the book. This book is for those with to much time on their hands not someone who is looking for answers. The authors are to be commended for their corruption of significant technical information into useless pros. A good door stop!

If you think you have learned VB for all it's worth, Take a browse through some of this book's fascinating chapters (especially the first one) for a glimpse of VB techniqes like youve never thought of before. Even though i am an MCP in VB (70-176 & 70-175) and have been programming for a while in it, I could still find very good tips about everything, starting from Error handling techniqes such as "Error handling as transaction processing" or "Smart data types -Smarties". The writing is pretty funny at times, but is to the point.It DOES assume you know VB and and Object Oriented basics, and have been writing small-medium sized software for a while before reading it. There is a very nice chapter about the principles of programming for the WINDOWS CE interface which was illuminating.

This is something i keep for reference on my shelf in our company offices and every once in a while i would remember a good solution to something were working on and look it up .

The 1st chapter alone is worth the price of admission, and has changed the way i program drastically, giving me power tips and advanced techniqes no programmer should go without.

Stuff like "How to trace call stacks after compilation" and the "ERL" function have really made my day. "How to use assertions" is one of the better guides to program code that tests itself.

Cool information about extended use of API and subclassing, plus some of the undocumented functions of VB and a few undocumented API functions as well.

(p.s If you don't know what ERL means, it returns the line No. of an error and is undocumented..except this book)

In short, Buy it.

The title of this book should be "How TMS implements VB"

If you're an Intermediate VB programmer who's looking to expand his/her skills, don't buy this book. I learnt this lesson the hard way.

This book is not really an Advanced book. Its really a super-advanced book with many special and arcane topics. There is good technical info at times but it is few and far in between. The book rambles along aimlessly. There is little explanation as to how one topic relates to another.

The authors are knowledgable in their fields but extremely conceited. They also try to be witty all the time. Gets tedious after a while. There are too few examples and too much prose.