Customer Reviews

Practical Visual Basic 6

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

 

 

I have a shelf full of books on Visual Basic. Many of them are over-priced thousand page monsters that simply collect dust because the information I need is too hard to find. This book is not only a great value at a reasonable price, it is also a useful reference for a beginning to intermediate level programmer. I can easily find the information I am looking for. The steps are spelled out clearly and code examples are provided as well. This book would be a worthy addition to anyones Visual Basic library. I highly recommend it.

This is strictly a book for beginners, as it covers only the rudimentary concepts of visual basic. You'd benefit from it if you've never written a line of code in your life. Even for total greenhorn, it's very tedious to read page after page about addition/subtraction/multiplication/division operations.

The greatest problem with this book, as with many, many other programming books, is that the authors just throw large chunks of code at you without bothering to explain why or how they work. For instance, on page 138 of the paperback edition, the author would write "Exit Sub" on line 44, without telling you why you would want to do that at that point. You WON'T find it explained in its context in the entire book. For beginners (as this book is obviously targetting at), this is plain bad practice. You'd have very many "whys" knocking around in your head, and you'd be left hopelessly lost. You'd even begin to doubt yourself, and think it's your fault, which of course it isn't. It's just bad writing.

In addition, in some cases, the authors seem to hate using the properties window, and wouldn't tell you that it may be much easier to use the properties window (for design-time properties)than writing laborious codes. The MoveIt example at page 98 illustrates my point.

Overall, I wouldn't recommend it to beginners, even though this book is written with beginners in mind. It'd put you off using visual basic, maybe forever. Try another book. There're many good ones lying around.

You've just bought VB6 so now what? Practical Visual Basic 6 that's what. It is cheaper than other books and covers usefull topics in depth, rather than try to gloss over everything. It has a language reference section which is a good thing for a begginer, and it has a CD with all the code examples - saves time typing - also includes working model VB6. A clear choice all round.

I found this book quite useful actually, now my monitor is more level with my face after placing this book under it! The book has lots of examples but doesn't thoroughly explain them. The index is way less than incomplete and the book is unkempt.

I've read MANY computer books of all sorts and this one comes out on bottom, I have to say.

There is nothing "practical" about this VB book. It is a confusing mess. Chapter 1 starts out simple enough but suddenly chapter 2 starts dealing with extremely advanced activex controls and goes into VB jargon. Code samples are not explained well and some don't even work right. Those who already know VB will not have a problem following it but beginners will probably just close it after chapter 4 and give up on VB thinking they're just stupid or something.

The book makes the mistake of throwing the entire VB kitchen sink at a beginner when all they need to know is getting acquainted with syntax, gui, and a smattering of useful common controls. There are much better books out there for the rank beginner, pass by this one even if it is in the bargain bin at your bookstore.

The website does no longer exist.
Most of the examples do not work.
The provided verison of VB is not able to work with all parts of the book.
This book is really crap, and is structured crap. I am going to return this as soon as possible, and maybe bbuy visual basic 6: quickstart guide.
I am buying a book on vb6, not .NET because thats what is studied at school.
This book starts off buy letting you create a program, cut and past bits from websites. It is absolutely useless, and a beginner would have no idea how it works.
It is poorly structured, and tells you useless crap.
It would be good if ti told you things, that you could use...
absolute crap, DO NOT BUY THIS BOOK, YOU WILL REGRET IT

I tried to learn from an electronic version of this book called Using Visual Basic 6. After you make the Calendar project, you'll be scratching your head saying, well I don't understand what the code is for, but you will be starving for more step by step projects. After all it is rewarding to make a project, and see it work. Then you look farther into the book, and there are not so many projects really. They just go on and on about stuff that you will never remember, not even using it in a real implementation. Too much at once. Take the chapter on "What's New in VB6"? Its All New to me. I could not finish because I am new to all this.

That being said, When I got this book, you can imagine my surprise when It was that same book I already had, but with a new name! I have to say the book was much nicer in real life. It looked good compared to the electronic version. But I was not about to read it again. Therefor, I give it 3 stars for the fact I did not read it all the way, and it says its for Beginners, that I don't believe. Maybe Programers beginning VB6? I guess Using VB6 (Former Name) wasn't for beginners, I don't know?

If you are new to visual basic, I recommend this book. It covers most areas that is needed including the use of VB for internet application. The best price for an introduction to visual basic. Easy to read and quickly appliable.

There is no easy way in evaluating this book. One can always say the classic response, It was all right and just walk away.
The book had much more examples to look at than in had tutorial type examples. It was fast reading. In the sample code the book teaches you the code by mixing it with other new concepts that will be explained later on. This somewhat leaves one with a funny feeling that the whole is not yet fully understood. Most of the sample applications, though sometimes very long in code, are not exactly real world applications. The book seems much easier than what it appears to be. A number of chapters, such as Activex components and data forms, cannot be done with the Learners Edition of Visual Basic thats provided in the book cd.

The best VB reference I've used (out of about 5). It is easy to find what you are looking for and has the best index. The examples are thorough and very informative.