Customer Reviews

Microsoft Mastering: Microsoft Visual Basic 6.0 Fundamentals

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

 

 

Basically, you get 14 short chapters totalling 350 or so pages,much of which is taken up with "Labs" or exercises (whichare actually decent learning tools)--plus a couple of appendices. Youget the annoyingly overused phrase "This topic is beyond the scope of this book . . .", and you get the occasional maddening omission. For example, the book lists different variable types, then says (and I quote): "For more information about Visual Basic data types, search for 'Declaring Variables with Data Types' in MSDN Help."

Now, Data Types is a pretty important topic. Would it have been too much to spend two pages going over the various data types and discussing the difference between an Integer and a Long Integer? The book again and again refers you to the online help for answers that should appear in the book itself, as if the authors were trying to pull it in under a page limitation.

The accompanying CD is decent, too, but the embedded movies kept crashing my browser (IE 5.0). Go figure.

For significantly less, you can get Visual Basic 6 from the Ground Up, or the John Smiley intro to Visual Basic. Both are far more comprehensive.

Don't buy this book - it's absolutely awful. Honestly, for that kind of money you'd expect somethings usable, but far from it. Explanations are always unclear and either oversimplistic or full of holes. Often new properties/methods etc are enumerated without being explained. You'd be FAR better off with the Dummies book, which, if you can get over the style, actually has plenty of good content. Microsoft are taking serious liberties with this one. One star? More like minus 5.

I origionally bought this book as a suppliment to the Halvorson book, thinking it would give me a more solid foundation. I stopped reading the book at chapter 3. The book assumes the reader knows certian basics that many beginners do not know. I also found it frustrating flipping to the back for "Hints" which are nothing more than the answers and information you need hidden at the back of the book.

It's a good stepping stone for VB beginners who've read the StepByStep. But the thing I hate most about this book is the so called 'hints' which are just the answers with no explanations at all.

Don't compare it with Learn VB Now or Step by Step, these two books assume readers have no VB concepts at all. However, use it as your stepping stone before studying the Desktop exam, you'll agree it worths.

I've had this book for about 3 years, and recently decided to pick it up and review my VB6 :) HORRIBLE mistake. Browsed the whole book in about 1 hr TRYING to look for a nugget... something that would make me deem worth the time spent... found nothing! As a result I decided to review it, a little bit off on the timing but better late than never.

This text follows the typical MSPress format. While trying to cover all relevant topics they leave out important information and the information given is vague and not very helpful.

I would still recommend this book for an absolute beginner in the "Visual" arena, but not as a useful reference for the rest.

While VB6 is not the most current version of this popular language/RAD tool it is still a widely used development platform and so this text and many other related should be relevant for developers looking for help.

Again, ONLY if you are totally new to the Visual development environment in general would this book be of any help, otherwise stay away.

I have bought hundreds of copies of this book for use as a training manual. It is a little pricey ... but for what I need it is worth it. The labs are a great learning tool and they all actually work. I have found that most code samples in other books were better left out. Not so with these. I have been through the book cover to cover many times and can only recall one error. (It is on page 242 and again on 243. adcCustomers.Find should be adcCustomers.Recordset.Find There may be a few more, but nothing serious.) I was very surprised to see so many negative reviews of the book since I use it so much with usually good feedback. This book was actually designed for use as a training manual for an instructor led course. So if you are working through it alone it might not be the best choice. One of the books by John Smiley might be a better choice if you are going at it alone. This is still a great book for the right audience. (PS Yes, this is the same review that I submitted for the Mastering VB6 Development and the Mastering Office 2000 Development books. I use them all for training classes. ) ...

I have bought hundreds of copies of this book for use as a training manual. It is a little pricey (the Amazon.com discount makes up for that) but for what I need it is worth it. The labs are a great learning tool and they all actually work. I have found that most code samples in other books were better left out. Not so with these. I was very surprised to see so many negative reviews of the book since I use it so much with usually good feedback. This book was actually designed for use as a training manual for an instructor led course. So if you are working through it alone it might not be the best choice. It is still a great book for the right audience.