Programming with Microsoft Visual Basic 6.0 [Paperback]

Diane Zak (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1, 1999 | ISBN-10: 0760010714 | ISBN-13: 978-0760010716

This text is designed for a beginning programming course. It uses Visual Basic 6.0 to teach programming concepts, and has a two-pronged approach. First, this book teaches programming concepts using a task-driven, rather than a command-driven, approach. By working through the tutorials, which are each motivated by a realistic case, students learn how to use programming applications that they are likely to encounter in the workplace. Second, the content, organization, and pedagogy of this book exploits the Windows environment. The material presented in the tutorials seeks to capitalize on Visual Basic's power to perform complex programming tasks earlier and more easily than was possible under DOS.

Product Details

• Paperback: 412 pages
• Publisher: Course Technology Ptr (Sd) (January 1, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0760010714
• ISBN-13: 978-0760010716
• Product Dimensions: 10.7 x 8.5 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (33 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,928,246 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

24 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The best beginners book to Visual Basic programming!, April 10, 1999

By 

Victor L. Peters (San Francisco, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Programming with Microsoft Visual Basic 6.0 (Paperback)

I have taught about five classes to beginning programmers using the previous version of this book. It is outstanding. The students absolutely love this book and find it extremely easy to learn from. It has a very easy to follow step by step approach. Although it makes a great textbook, it is so self explanatory that it also would be great for someone trying to learn on their own. It won't teach everything you might eventually want to know about Visual Basic. But, it will get you an excellent start. If you succesfully complete this book, you should move on to other VB books to get more details. The Deitel & Deitel book calld Visual Basic 6: How To Program is a great choice. It is a bit advanced for first time programmers, but if you do this book first, the Deitel book will make a lot more sense and teach you a lot more details. In summary, this is the best and easiest way to learn Visual Basic for beginning programmers.

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Makes VB a piece of cake!, May 20, 2000

By 

Real Name - Real Name "Real_Name" (Island of the Unreal) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Programming with Microsoft Visual Basic 6.0 (Paperback)

I am super-impressed with this book! I'm about to begin a 2-year web development program at Spokane Community College, and with 6 weeks 'till my classes start I decided to pick up the textbook for the Intro to Visual Basic course and get a head start. I've never done any programming before. It has only been 2 weeks and I'm already halfway through what the course covers. This book is great! I may very well get through the entire book before classes start, and the course doesn't even cover the whole book!

The material is presented so clearly that a child could learn to program with this book. The author uses a systematic, step-by-step appproach, and hands-on all the way through, so you're actually programming simple applications right away. I'm actually having fun!

Everything is presented in lessons, just like a class. At the end of each lesson are questions and exercises. Very thorough. Then, at the end of every third lesson is a debugging exercise (or 2, or 3) . But a great presentation & clear explanation aren't enough when it comes to learning something like computer programming. That's why I find the exercises very valuable, since practice is the only way to actually learn anything. The exercises are plentiful. Of course, anyone who doesn't want or need 'em can skip 'em.

And belive it or not, the book seems to be error-free. And although the approach is at first one of spoon-feeding, as the lessons progress you get to think for yourself more and more, and she throws in a challenge here and there.

The CD is great too. Every lesson incorporates applications which are found on the CD. So it's imperative that the CD work, and it does. The only problem I had was when I first loaded everything onto my system there was a file which was "missing" which was necessary for everything to run. It took me a while to hunt it down, but it was there. I just moved it around till it was where it needed to be for the system to find it. Apparently it somehow got placed in the wrong folder on the CD, so the program was looking for it on another path. Once I moved it, everything was cool.

Oh, by the way, the CD contains Microsoft VB 6.0. It's a trimmed version, but I understand it will do about 80-90% of VBs full capabilities.

In conclusion, this is NOT a book for someone with a programming project at work that they need to do fast and just want a quick & dirty primer. This book is for people who actually want to LEARN the VB programming tools and language. It was obviously designed as a classroom textbook, but Diane Zak has written the thing so carefully, and the presentation is so well thought out that she has inadvertantly eliminated the need for an instructor. I'm not in the habit of telling others what to do, but if you're a beginner and want to learn Visual Basic, you'll be making a big mistake if you pass this one up.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Best textbook I've ever used., March 12, 2000

By 

Tricia (Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Programming with Microsoft Visual Basic 6.0 (Paperback)

Visual Basic is my first programming language and I found this book to be an excellent guide. The author teaches the material extremely well and she succinctly repeats important bits of information when that information is crucial to you understanding the current material. This is very useful because it prevents readers from feeling "lost" or frustrated. The book is also very thorough, explaining the reasons behind what you are learning. Another great thing about this book is that it prevents you from feeling overwhelmed by the large task of learning Visual Basic by "chunking" the information into small manageable pieces for learning. The book has 10 tutorials, each tutorial has 3 lessons, with examples, followed by multiple choice, exercises and discovery lessons. Next time I buy a computer book, I will first check if Diane Zak has written a book in the area that I am interested in. If she has, then I will buy that book. She is an excellent author. I guess that is why our university has been using books written by Diane Zak for a few years now.