Customer Reviews

Visual Basic 2005 For Dummies

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

 

 

I hate to be the person to ruin the perfect score that this book has acquired, but I simply in good conscience cannot give a five star rating due to some flaws in the methods used to teach VB 2005.

In all fairness however, there exists no single programming book that will be able to suit every individual, at least in my opinion. For some this book could easily be 5 stars, for others much less. I think that much of this is based on the reader's perspective, experience, preferred learning style, and goals.

First the good; the book is very well written. The style that the author uses is clear and concise. The book is an easy read in the sense that it doesn't feel like you're reading a textbook, or rather, a lab report on some obscure organic chemistry finding from 1970. Instead of throwing numbers, statistics, or tables requiring massive amounts of raw memorization, the book allows the reader to jump around and reference the parts that are relevant to their "here and now" issues. The book can be read straight through, or used as a reference, and in either case the introduction and application of the .net backbone is well advocated and mostly easy to understand.

Furthermore, the code examples work and provide for very good, usable programs that the user could build upon should they desire. Rather than just providing for simple programs that are useless, the book demonstrates viable, functional programs which is something that many programming books fail to do. Also, there is a lot of explanation given as to the relevance of class libraries and dll's, and how they tie into a project.

Unfortunately, there are some critical flaws that many will notice if they take the time to really evaluate the techniques this book uses. To start with, this book is not for beginning programmers that lack experience. The author assumes that the reader already knows quite a bit about VB and more specifically, about .net when providing very brief explanations or examples. If the reader has never touched programming before, this book would be a waste of time, and I find it odd that a dummies book would be allowed to require a non-dummy. Fortunately for me, I have done quite a bit of coding in VB 6.0 so most of the time I was familiar with the references the author would make when he used programming lingo that lacked explanation.

Moving on, the teaching method of this book is a big no-no in my opinion. Rather than explain what every command is doing in a program, the book basically says, "here's how you make a program that does "X"", and then the reader is spoon fed a big block of code, often with only one or two commands or lines within the code explained. Making a person a programmer this does not do, rather just copying code from a book that fails to explain the dynamics behind the code resembles data entry more than coding. Anybody can just copy blocks of code and make a windows program in VB, or any other language for that matter, and most people that teach VB strongly suggest against just spoon-feeding code to people and solving their problems for them.

Coming from VB 6.0, I was mostly interested in getting behind the .net framework and utilizing this added power to create much more serious programs. Unfortunately, little advice is given to the 6.0 programmer, and most of the specific .net commands (especially the new ones in 2005) are not presented in a way that the user can utilize that suits their own style, rather we're given a gigantic line of .net specific code and told, "this does that". Rather than explaining how or why each specific property comes into play to produce a result, we're just given a big line or a big block of code and are supposed to just trust that it helps to perform a function that contributes to the results of the final project. The problem this creates is that many people will be likely to write out code because they just happen to know that it performs a certain function, but they don't know WHY it performs this function, and therefore will lack the ability to create custom code to suit their needs.

If I don't know why a command, command property, or event does what it does, then all I can do is memorize lines of code from other people, and mish mash them together to make my own programs.

In any case, this book is probably better suited to the individual that is taking VB 2005 classes and needs another perspective, another reference to aid them. As a standalone product however, I feel that it is lacking somewhat. On the other hand, if you're not receiving any instruction, want an easy read, and have no problem with being spoon-fed code just to see its end result, then look no further.

As an experienced .Net programmer I like to keep in touch with the beginning books so I know what kinds of problems I will have to correct in a programmer. I like that way this book is laid out and takes the reader through the language. I also like that all the code in the book I have tried so far compiles, this will make the book much more enjoyable for the new programmer. I would recommend this book for anyone that is new to .Net.

I always click on "See all my reviews" when I don't agree with a bevy of 5 star reviews, and more often than not you'll notice all those glowing accounts of greatness are the only review a person has submitted. I have a hard time swallowing those reviews, especially after having read the book.

There's one thing I can't stand in any type of tutorial/guide, and that's basic mistakes. For a programming book to have a minor typo a couple times is forgivable; for entire blocks of code to be just WRONG is not. This book has plenty of examples of mistakes - just look at his website [...] to see all of them listed. I gave up on this horrible text after finishing chapter 4. It's a complete mess. I found his website after-the-fact and he even says, "I did less than a good job of describing how to [ ... ]. I guess I was drinking that night."

You got an extra star for at least being truthful.

A read-through of this book by someone other than a non-technical editor is in order before sending this thing to print. Disappointing text, not worth the time/$ when there are others that explain the same concepts without being ripe with mistakes.

I am not new development but I try to read books of all levels. Knowing the author of the book I was curious and I like to read intro books like this to help when I mentor developers. I can compare what they know to what is contained in the book. If well written, I suggest the book, and this is a certainly a book I recommend. It lays out the topics I think are required especially in Part II. Was very happy to see Chapter 6 - Building Class Libraries because too often beginner books make it seem as if class libraries are not an entity to themselves but a piece of either win forms or web forms in .NET. I think this will make it much clearer to the novice. The chapter on debugging distilled the info to a good level to make someone effective instead of overloading with everything Visual Studio can do. Part III covered specific topics that I would not want to explain on my own. The information is readable and not over done. Part IV goes on to pickup some topics I would not have thought to include. Not every new developer will need to read these, but having these simple examples to refer to will be especially helpful to someone who is new to .NET but with some background in Visual Basic. Part V along with all the tips in the books, and the cheat sheets make this book even more valuable. If you are on the fence about this book, pick it up off the shelf at a local book store to get a feel for Bill's writing style. I think the conversational feel of the text makes it much nicer than the other books of the same technical depth on the topic.

I'm new to Visual Studio and found that I was spending most of my time just trying to figure out the user interface. The practical examples in this book were just what I needed to get up and running in a hurry. Also the book's web site has each chapters' sample code, feedback links, and an Errata page for after print corrections.

I am an absolute novice to Visual Basic for Aplications.
This book opened my eyes very quickly and made me feel like a genius in hours. It is very clearly laid out and the examples are fantastic and so easy to follow. The book comes with fantastic online support, so you not only get to sit at your computer and learn but you get to join a family and workshop your individual issues.
Do yourself a favour and increase your knowledge in hours, buy this one.

This book hits the ground running. It familurizes the reader with Visual Basic 2005, pointing out what is new for experienced VB programmers on the way. If you are looking to learn Visual Basic, this is the book to start with. It will give you a solid foundation for further study.

As a newcomer to the Visual Basic Programming language and just plain new to Programming period. I picked this book up after I had started an Accelerated Visual Basic Class at my Community College.
I was falling behind fast and was getting rather flustered. This book helped me so much. It begins by getting you used to the IDE you are working in. Something I was very surprised my instructor wasn't doing. After I was comfortable, I found that doing the things my instructor was talking about and the things the book asked you to do were second nature.
The book is designed in a modular fashion. So skipping over subjects we were not talking about in class was easy and allowed me to keep pace without being bogged down in advanced terms I had not learned yet.
Chapters 10 and 11 were my greatest asset. Mr. Sempf did an excellent job of getting you to think like you needed in order to understand.
I found this book a great asset overall. And was a delight to read unlike some Technical Books I have read. Thanks Mr. Sempf for the care you put into making this book enjoyable.

Since starting a class where I have to make internet pages, I've realized that I know diddly squat about anything beyond the very basics & nothing about the programs such as VB. In fact, the first time I saw the Visual Basic program I almost hyperventilated because it all looked so foreign & crazy.

Thank goodness for the 'Dummies' books! There were lots of nice references in the books for me to use. The only problem is well... sometimes there wasn't a lot of explanation for parts of the code & that's not very helpful if you actually want to understand what you are putting in! If I wanted to just copy down random code, I could've done that from the internet for free!

Still, there's lots of helpful bits & pieces in here, so it did help me overall with the course. I just recommend for any potential buyers that they find a copy to look through first before plunking down the money for it. You may find that other books could be more helpful than this one is!

This book is terrible, especially for new programmers. I am an experienced programmer and just picked up this book at a yard sale, because I like programming books. If you are new to programming, do not get discouraged by this book. There are some other beginning programming books that are much better.