Customer Reviews

Real Visual Basic: A Practical Approach to Enterprise Development in the Corporate World

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

This is a broad scoped book that "lays it on the line" in terms of what to do, and not do, in VB. You should have a good bit of VB programming under your belt to appreciate the import of what he says.

He also has a lot of recommended readings on each of the many topics.

He praises and criticizes VB... in all the right places, in my opinion. Although he criticizes VB 6 for bugs, I have found VB6 not to be so buggy. But I also take a more conservative approach to using the newest features.

The benefit of this book is that it will guide you in your use of VB. There are a few interesting code snippets. But the purpose of this book is not to get at the code, but to get the overall direction of when and how to use VB to develop medium to large projects.

Another area where he does great is in his coverage of database topics. I really liked his verbal descriptions of how to implement a homegrown pessimistic and optimistic locking scheme.

I like VB, and I like this book. I would put it on the scale with McConnell's books in terms of general direction. But it is not like Bruce McKinney's book in terms of code and examples.

This is a "deep thinker's" book. In that you often have to stop and think about his comments and how they apply to your use of VB. For example, should you move to ADO, should you use Triggers, what should your coding style/standards be.

He also does an excellent job on the systems analysis side of the equation. I found myself agreeing with him about 80 % of the time. I'm more conservative when it comes to implementing COM, DCOM and even basic objects. His coverage of COM and DCOM was also terrific. He describes the downsides to n-tier development... and why they often fail.

John Dunbar, Sugar Land, TX (near Houston)

Visual Basic is becoming the language of choice for a great portion of corporate development. This is mainly due to the ease of use of the language and also to the availability of many Visual Basic programmers. This trend has influenced many would be programmers to choose the Visual Basic as their programming language, for it is easier to learn. However, if some one wants to undertake a serious VB project, then the need arises for a serious developer. Many books offer an outstanding approach to teaching the necessary skills to master the mechanics of Visual Basic and show you how you can develop an object based distributed software. Among these books are those written by my favorite authors Jim Maloney and Deborah Kurata. However, this book " Real Visual Basic" by Dan Petit assembles all the skills, bolts and nuts one acquires from all other books and experiences. The author has eloquently gathered all those factors that make or break a visual basic project. The book contains a little code, but talks much about what is required to keep in mind when you are doing a Visual Basic project. And to my opinion that is what makes this book appealing. This book is a must read for those who are serious about VB. If you are a project leader it shows you the pitfalls that you must be aware of when using VB. If you are in the development team it teaches you how to apply your VB skills to make the project a success. Reading this book will not only teach you the object oriented techniques using VB, but will take you further into many stages of the life-cycle of the project from inception, realization and implementation. In the implementation the book walks you through coding practices, VB short comings, data access and OLE DB.

All in all this book will give you a hard to find information that is essential for project success. However, to take the information you get from this to the max, use it in conjunction with the other book written by Paul R. Reed. The later is titled "Developing Applications with Visual Basic and UML". It takes you to new level where you can both use UML and Visual Basic in a true object oriented fashion.

This book can also help those working towards Microsoft certification MCSD.

I have to agree with John Dunbar's earlier review of this book. I have found it to be an excellent source for corporate development using VB. BUT the author, Dan Petit, is also aware that VB is not the answer to every application and does an outstanding job at explaining why.

Part 1 of the 4 Part book gives a well thought out overview of the Full Lifecycle Development of a software application. It is this type of knowledge that every programmer, not just a VBer, should know and follow on a daily basis.

Dan is also wise enough to stay within his parameters in writing this book. Being carefull not to cover details that have already been over done. He is not shy in recommending further reading if you care to dive into a particular subject at greater length. I can appreciate that kind of generosity. He does't write with a large ego but with the idea of sharing knowledge.

All in all, this is a VERY professionally based book (i.e. not for the novice user). It gives insight into the corporate development community that professional programmers should have.

I can't wait to see what other tid bits of knowledge will come from Dan's word processor next! Keep it up Dan.

I just got a copy and it's already helping me with my programming. VB is laid out in a logical helpful way. I recommend it highly.

This book offers a decent view of Visual Basic development but is lacking in several areas. In addition to a rehash of yesterdays topics, there are several mistakes. It is easy to see an influence from Ted Pattison, but I would suggest reading one of the books authored by him like Programming Distributed Apps with COM+ & VB 6.0. I hope that this book is updated to illustrate real enterprise development practices in the distributed environment of today.

THis is clearly one of the better books out there. If you are looking for a code-intensive book or to learn vb, this is not the book for you. But if you are an intermidiate-level programmer looking to do a successfull project using VB, this book provides realistic information ( no marketing hype about future-ware). This book points out VBs weak areas, and trouble spots to steer clear of. Finally, it is a software development book, not just a vb-book or a code book. The focus is as much on executing projects well with the tool at hand.

I hope that Mr. Petit does not attempt to write any other books like REAL Java or REAL C++. If in the event that he does, he may want to learn about applicable software development processes and some fundamentals of distributed computing. I was to irritated after the first hundred pages to continue. Yet another book for the yard sale.

So the readers of America really want to know...What was Ted's cut on this one?

Fortunately we have grown past functional decomposition and OO Client Server purism. I believe that Mr. Petit should study Distributed apps and update his book! Stay Away from this one and read a REAL Ted Pattison book!

Real Visual Basic does contain some good potential but I was expecting a little bit more. Indeed, its undertaking is major: how to explain everything about Visual Basic planning, designing, development, and deployment in little over 400 pages?

In that regards, the book does it pretty good. It will go over some of the VB myths and concepts; explains them and "fix" the ones that needs to be fixed.

I think that the best thing about this book is the number of very good books that it makes reference to. Most of them are actually amazing and will provide further (but dated) reading on some of the concepts.

This book would be great for people that wishes for an All-In-One start in starting to plan / design a VB application. They will then have to go further to enhance their skills but this book will provide a good start as well as good further reading references.

A good review of the best development practices from a Visual Basic point of view. Has references if you want more detail. I found myself agreeing with most of what the author said, and wishing I could have given this to some managers I've had in the past.