Customer Reviews

Visual Basic 6 for Dummies (for Windows)

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Visual Basic 6 for Dummies was the first book I purchased to learn the fundamentals of VB. I have since purchased Visual Basic 6.0 Professional Step-by-Step and have recently ordered an intermediate level book, which I have not yet received. Because it was my first book on VB and I had no experience programming, I was able to get a lot from this book. I have since found that many of the methods and techniques, such as communicating with databases using the Data object (the only technique presented), to be too limiting for good programming. Sure, the techniques work, but I feel that if you're going to write real-world programs you need more depth, even as a beginner, than this book offers.

But let's be fair. I'm a technical kind of guy who wants to learn as quickly as I can.

This book has its good points, too. It is written in a style that is easy for non-technical types to stay interested and learn programming at a reasonable pace. I found the examples to be easy to follow and the explanations adequate while sometimes sketchy. The author uses humor, often pretty corny, to make it fun to read and his examples are written such that he rarely leaves you wondering how to use what you have just learned.

If you are a true beginner with VB and want to learn some basic concepts without going too deep, this is may be a good book for you. If, however, you are looking to get in at a quicker pace and learn more flexible programming approaches, you may want to consider something else.

For any beginner, this book is great. If you have no clue what BASIC is and don't know the difference between a module and a procedure, this book is great.

Although this probably won't get you at the expert level, it is a great beginning for anyone. It is much simpler than Microsoft's documentation and will definitely get you off on the right foot if you want something easy to start you off.

I found this book GREAT for learning visual basic if you are an ABSOLUTE beginner. Which I am, or thanks to this book, was. If you want a book on learning VB6 without having to slave at it, this is great. The tutorials and the practice software on the CD was also great. Although two things went wrong and only 2: 1) When they start to talk about Class Modules, The last chapter and second to last chapter (12 and 13) should be in the total reverse order. 12 talks about the complications of Class Modules and 13 talks about the simple stuff. 2) This uses code statments that can be used 2 different ways. IE: They talk about "End" and "Unload Me", even though Microsoft never mentions the "Unloade ME" statment because Microsoft never uses it! But, all and all, this is a great book. If you are starting VB right as you are reading this, VB for Dummies if for you.

When I was trying to make the upgrade from Visual Basic 4.0 to Visual Basic 6.0, this was the first book that I bought. This book is very easy to read and there are ample examples to illustrate each principle that the author is trying to teach you. I combined this books with the 4 "Learn to Program Visual Basic" books by John Smiley to give me a solid foundation in Visual Basic 6.0. The cartoons in this book will reduce down the stress of trying to learn something new.

Now that I am moving into .Net technology, I really appreciate how good this book was for people who have little or no experience with Visual Basic. This should be your first Visual Basic 6 book. By the way, Visual Basic 6 and the legacy source code that goes with it will be around for years to come.

Unfortunately this reader was not a total beginner. However this book did provide me with a pretty good review of the programming classes during my college days. Many of the concepts explained can be applied to other languages. If you are an absolute beginner, I would recommend this book. Otherwise, if you have a working knowledge of general programming concepts and can write pseudo-code or if you know what pseudo-code is!, I would suggest skipping to a more advance tome.

BTW, the author's attempt at humor was pretty bad.

If you know nothing about VB and are an absolute beginner, then I highly recommend this as your first book on the subject. Yes, it is extremely basic in terms of how much it exposes you to VB as a whole, but that's what it is intended for. And it was an easy read. At then end, you will be able to write simple programs (i.e. mortgage calculator, etc...). I used this book to get past the intimidation of learning a programming language, then I moved on. Because I am a DBA, my next purchase was the VB6 database programming for Dummies (which was a perfect continuation because this book ends on a discussion on databases). I then purchased an advanced book to help me with my MCSD which I am currently pursuing. BTW, I found the VB help to be extremely helpful as well with lots of sample code. There are also TONS of reference materials and tutorials (an example is johnsmiley.com) available on the internet. I gave this book 4 stars because.....well...just because nobody's perfect (sorry Wally).

Good Luck!

I decided to learn VB on my own, a lot of people have, and so I took a book home from the library and started reading. I was asleep 3 minutes later. But since I had a genuine desire to learn the program I bought VB for Dummies and to my surprise the book is just fantastic. I've become a fan of the ...For Dummies books just because of this book. If you are serious about learning Visual Basic, then there is no better place to start.

I own the VB 6 version of this book. I thought that overall it was great; the book offers excellent examples, esp. with the CD enclosed, it's kind of funny, in a corny sort of way, and it does a good job of explaining things in easy-to-understand english. This book is divided into two sections; the first explains how to make interfaces, and the second explains how to write the code that make the interfaces work.
Unfortunately, at the end of the first section, the author gradually slides into using a lot of BASIC code. Granted, BASIC is the only way to make some of the user interfaces, and he uses good examples. However, the author seems to have forgotten an important detail, that almost by default, the reader does not have much previous experience in BASIC. Thus, it can make things somewhat confusing when attempting to understand the construction of the menus AND deciphering the code.
In many examples later on, the author simply says something like, "In order to make so-and-so type of box, you'll need to use this..." and follows the screenshot up with several or more lines of code, without really explaining what any of the code does. Except for this apparent lapse in logical order, the book is otherwise great. Chapter 14 begins with "the basics of code", which is odd, since a lot of code had already been covered in Chapter 13.

I did not have any experience on VB before. But after reading this book I not only got the basic knowledge of VB 6 but also started making my own programs that I used in my office practically. This is excellent book for beginners. It opens your way to go ahead and look for advance books on the same topic. I highly recommend this book for those who want to learn VB6 in two to three weeks.

This book is very good if you have -ZERO- experience with programming in Visual Basic. Keep one thing in mind, though - Do not think that this book alone will get you where you need to be to be able to program effectively. This book does a great job of introducing the program, but it lacks the ability to get you up and running like many other books I purchased for just that reason.

This book will get you to the point where you can understand some of the "drier" materials out there. You will understand what Visual Basic is all about, but I personally don't believe it can get you on your feet right away.

Examples are good, but impractical. As with any book, I would not advise trying to copy the code verbatim. Rather, gain an understanding of what the code is supposed to do and follow the example to get to where you want to be.

I would recommend this book if you are sitting on the fence trying to decide if you might be able to program in Visual Basic. I did just that. I was unsure if I would be able to do this since I only programmed in BASIC as a kid and PASCAL for one semester in High School. After reading this, I realized that it might be okay. Then, I bought other books and because of this one, the others made sense.

I hope you found this helpful.