Customer Reviews

Pure Visual Basic

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

 

 

If you want to learn Visual Basic, go somewhere else. This book is not designed to learn the basics of the language.

If, instead, you wish to delve into new areas of VB and get coding examples to move you quickly into developing these new techniques, then Pure Visual Basic is your book.

I was looking for a book on the new IIS applications when I stumbled on this book. Yes, it does cover IIS apps (in fact it has more pages on IIS apps than the "all inclusive" VB books already on the market), but it also includes a whole lot more. Best of all, it is a small book that will be fairly easy to carry along when you go to the job site.

So, why only four stars? This is a personal thing, since I believe most of the info and code deserve five stars. However, the first half is all procedural-style code, and considering that the reference portion takes up about 1/3rd of the book, there is little left for OOP (or rather OBP - Object Based Programming, which better describes VB). Considering Microsoft's push on OOP, this is a bit short. However, this oversight is more than made up for in the pages that are OO.

This is simply the best VB book I have seen for experienced prgrammers. If you have extensive experience in another language or are an experienced VB programmer and just need to learn the finer nuances of VB, this is the resource for you. For example, the author only spends 7 pages on the obligatory sections on loop and conditional statements, and 40 pages on building web applications.

Finally, a VB book that does not assume that you are turning on your computer for the first time! Conversely, if you are new to VB or programming, this book will probably leave you more confused than before.

This is one of a very small number of computer books I've come across that is concise, well written, lucid, and actually useful. No Dummies fluff, no long winded self serving expositions in search of an editor, just a clear and incisive exploration of the intricacies of VB backed by lots of examples in code. This isn't a book for beginners in that it assumes a certain familiarity with the language, yet beginners will benefit from having this resource available as they need to research topics. I wish that more programming books came even close to the quality of this one.

This book is like having access to a good friend who knows VB inside and out.

The size and format of this book make it so much more inviting to use and keep around than your normal 500 page exploratory into VB that the majority of books seem to lean towards today.

The topics covered are comprehensive without being overly detailed. The use of pictures and grahics to illustrate points is done with taste and functional minimalism.

The book assumes you understand VB and are looking for clear explanations of features (basic through advanced) without having to go through pages and pages of help files.

Topics covered include syntactic features, coding conventions, OO, IIS and Web Apps, DAO/RDO/ADO, MTS and COM and bunch more.

I wish Sams would produce the equivalent handbook style publications for Visual C++ and Java.

Very rare indeed that you encounter a VB book worth the paper it's printed on. With the Hardcore series out of print and nearly every other book prefaced with beginner, it not often you find a good book on VB not written by Kurata or Appleman.

As the title says, it is a "code-intensive resource." That, backed by the wide range of topics covered (Lang Basics, File I/O, ADO, NT Services, some COM, Win32 API, etc) makes it a solid resource.

I've worked the Net services and .com industry for three years and this is the best VB book I have come across.

Of course, I hate VB and would rather write Java...but that's another story.

Possible the best VB book I own.
Deail with a lot of subject in depth that most books just touch on.
The code examples are correct and very efficient, and documented in a way thats simple to undersatnd.
suited for developers from beginner to advanced
This boook is a must..!!!

I have been a visual C++ programmer for 5 years and needed to write my first VB app. I bought this book for a reference and another for more of a "how to". This book serves its purpose well. Just like the cover says, it's a reference for the professional developer. I wanted a book like "Visual Basic for Visual C++ programmers" but none exists (does it?).

Gets right to it. Doesn't lead you through the filler crud most VB books do. Useful content of this book is around 50% or so. Most VB books are about 10% to 18%.

A good solid compact reference. I keep this one close at hand.

I had this book lying around for a while. Then a friend asked me how to create a VB DLL that exports functions, not COM classes that can be reused by other VB clients. So, I gave him the book, thinking that something so obvious would be covered by this book. The topic does not seem to be covered.