Microsoft Visual Basic 6.0: Programmer's Guide [Paperback]

Microsoft Press (Author), Microsoft Corporation (Author)

Book Description

Series: Programmer's Guide | Publication Date: September 5, 1998

Created by the Microsoft Visual Basic development team in convenient, easy-to-digest print form, Microsoft Visual Basic 6.0 Programmer's Guide is a comprehensive resource for beginning to intermediate users. It is designed to help you get the best possible results from one of Microsoft's most popular programming systems for Windows. Microsoft Visual Basic 6.0 Programmer's Guide will help you learn programming fundamentals, create your first Visual Basic program, and optimize and distribute applications. Taken from the Programmer's Guide content available in the online documentation, but available in printed form only from Microsoft Press, the book provides vital insights into creating applications for stand-alone desktops, networked PCs, the Internet and intranets, and the components market.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Written by the developers of Visual Basic, Microsoft Visual Basic 6.0 Programmer's Guide gives you a solid overall grounding in the language and the major tasks you will undertake in the development environment.

The book is divided into two parts and a series of appendices. The first part introduces the basic concepts of the Visual Basic environment and explains the form- and event-driven paradigm. Five chapters later, the authors explain forms, controls, and projects and give a quick primer on the unique structure of the Visual Basic language, its data types, and its use of functions, procedures, and code modules.

The second part, "What You Can Do with Visual Basic," makes up the majority of the book. A chapter on user-interface creation illustrates how to create single and multiple-document interfaces and how to implement dialogs and toolbars, and presents some general user-interface tips. Following chapters cover each of the Visual Basic custom controls, present advanced project-compilation concepts, and introduce the object-oriented features of Visual Basic.

The guide then presents ActiveX components, event and error handling, text and graphics manipulation, performance optimization, and other crucial topics. Four appendices spell out Visual Basic's limits, coding conventions, compiler options, and how to add help to your programs. No matter what your skill level, this programmer's guide will become a frequently visited companion. --Stephen Plain

Product Details

• Paperback: 928 pages
• Publisher: Microsoft Press (September 5, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1572318635
• ISBN-13: 978-1572318632
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 7.4 x 1.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (29 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #443,188 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

44 of 44 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Always start with MS documents first, June 24, 1999

By 

[e-mail] (Tustin, California) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Microsoft Visual Basic 6.0: Programmer's Guide (Paperback)

As a contract programmer that has used VB since 2.0, I recommend this set, along with the "Reference Library" for any serious programmer, from rookie to pro. With each VB generation, I reread the Programmer's Guide. For example, chapters 9 and 10 are a must before the reader is ready for Reference Library's "Component Tools Guide" (which teaches you how to design and build ActiveX components.

Caveat for the rookies: Visual Basic has become a very complex and powerful language since its first release, when it was supposed to be used for GUI prototypes. You will need to spend time and effort learning the language and the various Microsoft strategies. I recommend SAM's "Teach Yourself VBx In 21 Days" and other beginner books in addition to this one. You can do a lot useful programming without ever touching the ActiveX component development.

BTW, there is an index and, yes, you will be referred to the online help for details in a lot of subjects. But that will be details and broader understanding. This book is already over 900 pages. "War and Peace" we don't need.

25 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Must-Have Reference, January 26, 1999

By 

[e-mail] (Switzerland) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Microsoft Visual Basic 6.0: Programmer's Guide (Paperback)

Even though this book runs to over 900 words it contains none of the padding and waffle found in many VB6 books. Maybe this would make it tough reading for complete beginners and it might be better to read an introductory book such as Sams "Teach yourself Visual Basic 6 in 21 days" first.

To really get into VB6 you would also need Microsoft's "Visual Basic 6 Component Tools Guide" as component creation is really central to the VB6 programming paradigm and isn't touched in this book.

Even after reading and understanding this book there's still a lot of subjects that aren't really covered in any sort of depth (like ADO). This is more a consequence of the enormity of the new VB6 environment rather than any shortcoming of the book.

The book content is available electronically on the VB disk but I find reading from the screen very difficult and miss the contents and index.

If you can read and understand everything in this book you will be completely equipped to tackle any of the more advanced VB6 books.

Though I had a few gripes, given the task of providing a reasonably complete programmer's guide, and the constraint of cramming it all into 900 pages, Microsoft have done a good job with this book.

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good, but not the best, October 9, 2000

By 

J. Holmes (Olathe, KS USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Microsoft Visual Basic 6.0: Programmer's Guide (Paperback)

I learned how to program about a year before I bought this book. I bought this book because I just couldn't remember all the little specifics of some codes. After I got it home and started trying to use it, I realized I also needed the Microsoft Visual Basic Reference Library. At the end of every section in this book, it says, 'For more information on....look at the....section in the reference library.' I kind of wish I had looked through the book some more before I bought it some I would know that, but I didn't. This book is still helpful when I'm just trying to do a little something, but I found that I use the reference library more and more.