Customer Reviews

Microsoft Visual Basic 2008: Comprehensive Concepts and Techniques (Shelly Cashman)

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Normally, Shelley-Cashman books are very good and very trustworthy. This book, although it does contain some very good information, is filled with lots of mistakes. I realize this is a first edition so some errors such as typos are expected.

Up until chapter 7 the book is very good. You can tell, beginning with ch. 7, that the style of writing changes and a lot of the step-by-step information is wrong. I think either this was simply copied from another book or it was the work of another writer with little writing experience. Also, some of the info is outdated. The chapter dealing with writing apps for smartphones keeps mentioning PocketPC and Windows CE. To my understanding, Windows Mobile replaced both several years ago.

As for the projects, the steps to create forms could have been made a lot easier to understand. It is written in paragraph style. Instead, chart-style would have been easier for the student to understand.

There are some lessons that seem to be out of order. In my opinion, the aforementioned chapters (7 deals with web apps and 12 (I think it is) deals with mobile apps) are out of place. By that, I mean they should have been placed at the end of the book instead of between chapters. The book takes you through forms and databases then suddenly it starts talking about web apps. Yes, I know web apps include databases, but the book should have talked about stand-alone apps in their entirety (as it relates to this course) then showed the neat stuff about web and mobile apps at the end to whet the student's appetite for more to encourage further learning of VB.

I am sure the author knows her stuff and really meant to do a good job with this book. But being a first edition, they really need to thoroughly review it and make corrections and changes with the student in mind.

At this point, I don't know for sure if I would recommend this as a must have book. If the problems were corrected in the next edition, I would very likely say yes to it.

It is a good book, but it splits the chapters in 2 parts so far. I am just in Ch5 now. It is allright but you have to go back and fourth inCh.

This is an excellent example of what a programming book should be. The chapter took you through step by step instruction on a program. The end of the chapter problems were easy to follow and if unsure about what to do the answer was easily found in earlier chapters. Very satisfied with this book.

Length:: 3:39 Mins

To introduce myself I am Chris and attend college in order to promote the Glory and Kingdom of my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To comment on this book it will be a great read used to futher my knowledge on computer visual basic programing. althouh the material is out of date I currently don't need and can't afford the most up to date verison (2010). I recomend this book or its series to anyone desiring to know even how to turn on a computer much less how to operate a comuters programs.

This is an excellent textbook for visual learners! I strongly prefer it to the Deitel series. Each chapter has a step-by-step tutorial project and end of chapter reinforcemnt exercises. It is well written and easy to understand.

The book arrived in good condition but had random junk in it like tags that undoubtedly didn't come from anything even relevant to the book. All the pages seem to be in place, a few have been marked on but it looked like someones minor notekeeping. I was happy with the book itself once I got done cleaning out all the trash someone left.

I had to buy this OVERPRICED book for a visual basic class I took. I agree with some of the other reviewer's points, the mobile and web apps sections should be either one big auxiliary chapter at the end or appendix items.

I also felt the author was often way too verbose and when into too much detail covering things that required less than a couple sentences. Then keywords like "Me." were not introduced, but just started appearing. The only clarification I could find was a short ambiguous sentence. This just about summed up the book for me.

The book went on and on about using public and private variables but didn't go into classes and inheritance until the end of the book. I was a newbie and didn't get exactly what a class was until I got the end of the book. I had no clue what the difference between a procedure and a class was until the end.

The examples were hard too follow, each chapter was set up like a tutorial, but not one that you can follow along with, it would introduce concepts that weren't part, didn't fit in with the chapter project, then at the end there would be a walk through. Far too often the way the page was laid out the wasn't enough room to fit complete lines of code, so most of them were two concatenated lines, so frustrating.

This book is like a great, yet very sloppy rough draft, it needs to be trimmed down(way, WAY too much discussion about how great Microsoft is and how much they do for the world), some clarification added and rearranged. If this book were like 20 bucks, I'd say if you can spare the cash and are desperate to learn VB (heaven knows why) then this might be the book for you. And sadly there don't seem to be too many decent VB.NET books out there.

I am very pleased with the book and the speed in which it got here. The book was in great condition and I couldn't beat the price.

I was very happy with the purchase. It arrived quickly and is in very good condition. I am very satisfied.

The book came quickly and in perfect condition. There was plenty of packaging around it so it wouldn't get damaged. Thank you very much.