Customer Reviews

Advanced Programming in Visual Basic 6.0 w/Cd

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

 

 

I teach Visual Basic Programming, and have read a dozen books on Advanced VB while searching for a new textbook. This book does the best job of both giving good examples and explaining how VB works. Some books have lots of coding examples, but leave you with little understanding of how to design on your own. This book also has far less errors than any other book I've used. The accompaning CD has programs to go along with every chapter. It's a wonderful book, and the one I'll be using next year! It covers ADO well, and is the best introduction to ASP I've read.

This book may not be perfect, but it's close. I've been teaching with the Bradley & Millspaugh books for 3 years now and was excited about this new one that focuses on database and objects. I like the fact that there is not a lot of fluff included. Code at the end of every chapter that illustrates chapter concepts is welcome.

The book is fine, however I find the instructor resources to be abysmal. For instructors publishers typically provide programs as answers to the programming exercises at the end of the chapters - but the teacher examples for this book are horrid. The database programs won't run at first because the samples don't use the author's advice about using VB's App.Path. At times various forms won't load; again because App.Path isn't used. Instructions say to do a certain thing but the example doesn't implement it. There are no comments and little indentation in the code examples. In order to use the sample code included for instructors, you have to re-write a lot of it yourself.

So, if you want just the book - that's fine. But if you're looking for teacher resources to accompany the text...well...

...I gave it one star because I couldn't give it none.

While I'm only in VB II, I have over 200 hours of college credit and 18 hours of computer science. This is the worst textbook I have ever used.

Why?
It is filled with errors--ex. p. 23, used MCSD instead of MSDN, p. 95, "The key field ...may be a text field, such as last name, or a combination, such as last name and first name (I guess this is technically correct, but I sure don't want the authors designing any databases for me), p. 223, program code Sets variables but doesn't declare them first.

The different chapters appear to be written by different authors. Chapter 3 uses a step-by-step tutorial in excruciating detail. None of the other chapters up through 5 use this style. Chapter 5 doesn't even give program snippets complete enough to see what the authors are trying to do. On the other hand p. 177 gives three examples of a sort procedure, changing only the field name.

The authors introduce topics without giving enough detail to determine their significance. They may or may not come back to them in later chapters. Example, unbound controls on p. 175 and p. 215. Parameterized queries are introduced on p. 185 and not even discussed with the Command object in chapter 5.

The coverage of SQL is pathetic, at best.

The first 200 pages of the text emphasize the DataControl and the DataEnvironment and then on p. 208 the authors say "You will find that most professional VB database applications use ADO code except in "quick and simple" projects." Then why did we just spend six weeks on them?

I wouldn't waste shipping charges on this book. Surely, there is something better.

I have been learning VB6 on and off for about 1 year now. I am teaching myself via books, I bought the "Programming in visual basic 6.0" by the same aurthors to start with. That book I found to be excellent, and started me on projects. I decided to buy "advanced Programming in visual basic 6.0". This book is also good and easy to follow, however, alot of the content is almost identicle to the first book, I would say 60% of this book is covered in the previous edition. Three stars for teaching what I already have been tought by the first book.

This book was the text book in college for my class. It is an above average book. If you go through the exercises, you will know the subjects well. My suggestion would be, if it is part of your curriculum, then you buy it. If you are really into learning advanced VB or VB.NET, I suggest Deitel series.

I have read through many different text books for Advanced Visual Basic students. This one by far has to be the best. The text is easy to understand and the code examples are wonderful. If you are even thinking about programming in Visual Basic, this book should be in your collection. I can't wait to see what Millspaugh and Bradley have cooked up for their .NET books.

I have about 12 Visual Basic 6 books. This by far goes into detail into things I normally do in VB than any other of the books I have.

This book covers good ground on things such as using the explaining VB's controls and covers ADO better in a quicker time than most books. I still use this book a lot when I am working on legacy stuff.

If you are creating standalone applications in VB6 with database activities, this book is a must-have and invaluable.

Everybody seems to have different opinions on programming books, see any book and look at the plethora of different reviewer responses. This book has helped me personally too many times to count. Julia, you Rock!!

This is actually a really good book. I used this text to learn Advanced VB 6.0 after I learned from the preceeding text, Beginning Programming in Vsual Basic 6.0, and I still use it when writing typical VB app projects. The book is excellent at showing how various controls are used and manipulated in code as well as visually using the IDE. Makes good examples of a coding techniques, SDI/MDI, control properties, Let-Set-Get, classes, modules, VB OOP, forms, ADO, and reports generation. Also explains ActiveX Components, DHTML, and publishing for distribution. What I liked most about the authors approach is the that the code is very easy to follow and makes perfect sense. The book also explains using code to control the program instead of relying completely on the RAD aspect of VB, which is easy to do since you can actually write a complete application without writing a single line of code. Unfortunately, some points of interest are difficult to find weeks after completing a chapter, as they are not always documented in the TOC. I also didn't like that each subject or technique being demonstrated adds more functionality to a project started in a previous chapter. This was a relatively minor thing compared to the usefulness of the book. Overall, a very good learning text when used in a classroom the way the author intended. All of the sample code works and it's code you can actually use---that alone is worth at least 4 stars.

I consider myself a pretty savvy programmer. This book presents advanced visual basic concepts in a muddy, unfocused, non-user friendly format.

The authors definitely ignored the needs of their audience by producing this atrocious textbook!

Absolutely Horrible! Avoid like the plague! This book will only frustrate you to no end and deter you from your goal of being a better VB programmer!

if you don't have much experience in any programming languages and want to learn VB, this book is good for you. easy to read and understand. book contents many examples