Customer Reviews

Sams Teach Yourself Visual Basic 5 in 24 Hours

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I was completely clueless about VB so this book gave a pretty good introduction to the subject. However, I found the examples riddled with errors which meant, as a beginner, I had to re-write code. Not an easy task. Got past a few chapters and then stopped. Chapters on looping aren't clear at all. I was disappointed.

Mr. Perry patiently explains the fundamental concepts of VB5 for the beginning VB5 programmer with no prior experience. Each chapter ends with a helpful quiz and hands-on exercises, some of which depend upon sample programs that are included with retail versions of VB5.

One gets the impression that Mr. Perry has had experience teaching VB5 beginners, since he clarifies many points that confuse beginners, but which VB5 gurus often take for granted.

The prospective reader should note that mastery of the VB5 programming language requires significant time and effort. As a beginning VB5 programmer, I have found Mr. Perry's book to be a helpful first step.

I was very disappointed with this book. The book itself seemed exciting and informative, until I got it home.

I loaded up the CD-ROM and started into the book. The sample program (Vcr.vbp) on page 22 isn't in the program or on the CD, so don't waste your time looking for it like I did. The second project mentioned in the book (pg 31) tells the user to use the VB Application Wizard. Well, it isn't on the program either. So between these two programs, 12 pages of text are just about worthless. I decided to stop reading the book until I could work out this problem with the publisher.

I called SAMS publishing. The representative said she would contact Mr. Perry for clarification of this problem and would send me a response. She never contacted me again. That was three weeks ago.

This is the second book by Mr. Perry which has similar problems (references to programs and features which don't exist. The other was "Visual Basic 4 in 12 Easy Lessons."

I decided to write this review because I don't want anyone else to be as disappointed and frustrated with "Teach Yourself Visual Basic 5 in 24 Hours" as I am.

I will not buy any more books from Mr. Perry unless they come with unconditional money back guarantees

He talks way too much; he could have covered many of the things he only "touched on" with less gift of gab and more hands-on procedures. Too much talk is boring; had to drink extra coffee to get through some of the verbal marathons, as with other Sam's books, just too much flapping of the mouth. I actually prefer Microsoft online tutorials, neat and concise.

Had I read the reviews posted here, I would have never purchased this book and do not recommend it for learning Visual Basic. The book skips lightly over many complex issues, thereby leaving the reader without a solid foundation on those topics before moving on. After completing this book, I do not believe that I have the basic information required to successfully develop a usable VB application. As a result, I have had to purchase another book to cover the same material in better detail. The biggest lesson that I learned from buying and reading this book is to do your homework up front and carefully read the reviews at this site prior to making a book selection.

This is really the best book, if you are an absolute beginner just like me. I know nothing about Visual Basic or for that matter any other Visual Language on Windows. But I am fairly well versed with programming languages. With that information I read this book over a period of three days and am very comfortable in building my own application (a little one ofcourse). It does not have too many examples for you learn to become a master of the subject that that is not what this book is meant for.

The flow of the book was very smooth. The language is excellent and Greg Perry is simply the best in teaching the beginner.

This is an easy to follow book for those who are beginning to learn Visual Basic. Some chapters I found can be sped through in much less than an hour where I found other sections a little more confusing. The book is great for a base knowlege of the language but lacks working code examples in some chapters. The tables provide a great reference tool but some of the instruction is vague.

I got about 5 chapters into this book and then bagged it and bought MS Visual Basic Step By Step (Halvorson) which so far is much better. I am not a programmer, but I am trying to learn something about programming with VB. This book purports to be for beginners but leaves a lot of gaps. There were some exercises on the CD that did not work when I put the exact same info in my program. When I looked at the answers, there were concepts used to answer the exercise that had not been introduced yet, and some concepts introduced that were not used in the exercises. None of the answers was explained. Also, there was one example where you calculated your age in dog years that used the flat-out wrong calculation. It didn't do much for the credibility of the authors, editors, publisher that they didn't catch that. Was unable to get any tech support (or even answer)from publisher via email. Their phone number is a toll call, and I can't make long distance calls from the office without using my phone card, which would be really expensive. In short, this book missed the mark by rather a large margin.

A few months ago, when I decided to start learning computer programming for fun , I knew absolutely nothing about the subject. This book was one of the first I picked up after a friend recommended it. Although several of the chapters took me much longer to get through than the promised one hour each, I have to say that most of the concepts were clearly explained and were presented in a logical format that is suitable for beginners. I now feel that I have a solid grasp of the fundamentals of VB onto which I can build. The missing examples on the CD infuriated me though!

Look, bottom line here - for $19, it's a great INTRODUCTORY book, end of discussion. In this case, you get much more than you pay for, including some exercises on a CD (including a copy of the CC Edition of Visual Basic, so you don't have to go out and spend $200+ on a full version) and 24 very well thought out chapters. I had never seen visual basic before and just wanted to get an idea of what it is. I don't do any programming - I'm just learning this for "fun". If you want to learn visual basic, get this book - it's be the best $19 you can spend.