Customer Reviews

Hands on Visual Basic 5

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

 

 

after you've completed a beginner, syntax-oriented text. Having worked my way through nearly a dozen programming texts in 4 different languages, I'm happy to say that this is one of the best books of its kind I've ever read. You actually get to work through projects that aren't "toy" programs, but begin to look and feel like real Windows-based appplications. It's a real feeling of accomplishment, and a great way to sharpen your programming skills. Excellent work, Ms. Podlin!

Having read the comments of other reviewers (thanks, guys!), I knew what I was getting into with the typos. I am a real VB beginner and just love the way the book walks you step-by-step through what seems to me to be a pretty sophisticated application. It covers a very wide variety of tasks, along with giving the reader a good understanding of the application development process.

But, boy is it frustrating trying to debug the code! And, you can't look at the app on the included CD, because it has incorrect path names embedded in the files, so you can't open the project files.

Despite all of that, it's the only book of its kind that I have found--an excellent learning tool, not just another reference book to read. You'll really learn how to develop the application, design the user interface, write the code, and more about debugging than you may have wanted.

I've purchased various other books on VB, but was never sure what chapters to focus on. And I never felt I had gone step-by-step through the program development process. But with the "Hands On Visual Basic 5" book I felt as if the authors of the book were tutoring me one-on-one on how to design real-life programs. I've put all the other books aside and am waiting to finish this one before looking for a VB position. The only reason I did't give it 5 stars is because of all the typos. But the typos gave me a good feeling when the typos I found matched the typos list provided by the author (unfortunately the typos list does not list all typos, though).

I just completed the book. I ordered it via Amazon and must have gotten a printing that had been corrected or CD with correction, because I didn't run into any stumbling blocks due to the code. I would provide a warning to NT4 users: be sure that SP3 is installed otherwise the code will not work. This is an operating system problem and was not a coding problem. If you use Office 97 and VB then this is an excellent book. I have been an extensive user of Excel and just learning VB when I came across this book. I learned a lot about programming VB and about how to integrate it with office 97. I also learned a lot about databases and about managing databases. There isn't a doubt in my mind that this is the book you want if you have Office 97 and VB Professional and want to write seriously useful programs in a short time. Even if you don't plan to use Office 97 with your programs this is an excellent way to learn VB.

Do not buy this book unless you like debugging code. It should come with a LARGE bottle of asprin. There are many errors in the book, but fear not there is a web page that tells you what and where the errors are. Too bad you have to e-mail them to find out what the address is. Even then it did not list all the mistakes and listed some that were not there. The only reson I gave it a 2 is because I learned some by debuging the errors. If you buy this book good luck!!!

In my opinion the book's general content, structure, and subject matter are outstanding. However the entire book is so full of errors in the instructions and code that it is almost impossible for an intermediate VB programmer to follow. The book being geared toward beginners is laughable. I am told there is a second printing with corrections, and received an e-mail with errata from the author. However I found no less than 15 additional errors in just the first lab exercise. The aim of the book is admirable, and the style is very refreshing. But I have never seen an instruction manual so full of holes. My money - and the book is very expensive for it's size - would have been better spent. I have asked the author and the publisher for information on a copy of the second edition and have heard nothing. Look elsewhere till a major revision is completed!

Nowhere does it say in the online previews for this book (I read three)that you have to have the Professional version of VB5 in order to do the projects in the book.

You also have to have Word97 and Excel97 installed on you computer before you can do anything that the book offers.I don't have any of these. So unless I want to spend over a Thousand dollars the book is useless as the whole learning concept of the book is based on doing the projects. I tried reading it without doing the projects but it was to confusing and frustrating for me , so I couldn't get into it.

I picked this book up at 8 p.m. and didn't put it down until 4 a.m. I couldn't put it down. The book was too good. This is an exciting, real-world approach to learning Visual Basic. I bought 6 or 7 books on Visual Basic, none compare to this. The other books are drier, slower, and I found myself daydreaming and trying to skip chapters to get to the "good stuff". Hands-On Visual Basic starts and ends with the "good stuff". (P.S. I finished this book a few months ago, and it's still the one I recommend after picking up a number of other books. A good companion book is O'Reilly's Access Database Programming and Design for good relational database tutorials and learning SQL).

Terrible book containing numerous code errors. The sample projects on the CD-ROM do not function properly. Some will not even load properly into VB5 for development/correction. Parts of the projects, such as images are missing as well. DO NOT BUY THIS BOOK UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES!