Amazon.com: The Visual Basic Coach (9780201745498): Jeff Salvage: Books

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0201745496 | ISBN-13: 978-0201745498 | Publication Date: January 15, 2002

This book is written for any programmer who plans to use a computer for information acquisition and processing in the Information Systems, Information Technology, and Business worlds. By using easy-to-follow examples from the real world, extensive drills to reinforce the development of core programming skills, and a full-color design that motivates readers, this book helps readers develop a mastery of Visual Basic and problem solving skills.

#outer_postBodyPS { display: none; } #psGradient { display: none; } #psPlaceHolder { display: none; } #psExpand { display: none; } This book is written for any programmer who plans to use a computer for information acquisition and processing in the Information Systems, Information Technology, and Business worlds. By using easy-to-follow examples from the real world, extensive drills to reinforce the development of core programming skills, and a full-color design that motivates readers, this book helps readers develop a mastery of Visual Basic and problem solving skills.

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Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

The Visual Basic Coach is written for those just beginning with Visual Basic (VB).The book subscribes to the classic idiom "practice makes perfect" by providing extensive coverage of all the basic skills needed to master the VB language, as well as detailed examples, drills, and exercises to practice these skills.

The Visual Basic Coach is the perfect book for learning VB and includes:

An exceptional step-by-step approach that is easy for everyone to follow
A precise yet non-intimidating writing style that appeals to beginners
A full-color presentation that shows actual screens in the VB environment
Over 150 drills, complete with solutions and detailed explanations, to provide immediate practice of and feedback on what was just learned
Extensive real-world examples of the programming concepts covered
Case studies that run throughout the book to tie everything together (The Payroll System and The Voting Booth)
An optional chapter that relates the VB concepts learned to how they will be implemented in the new Visual Basic.NET environment
"Coach's Corner" feature in every chapter which provides advanced coverage of many VB concepts

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

With the many Visual Basic 6.0 books on the market, why write another one? Our approach addresses the needs of information systems professionals. Unlike many texts that are more scientifically and mathematically based, The Visual Basic Coach targets those developers most likely to learn Visual Basic. Visual Basic 6.0 already has a huge installed base, and more and more people are learning it every day. While a new version of Visual Basic, Visual Basic.NET, is on the horizon, it is a huge departure from the development environment of version 6.0. History shows that when a radically different version of a language is introduced, its acceptance will take longer than a simple upgrade. Therefore, this book targets the many people still wanting to learn Visual Basic 6.0 with an eye toward converting to Visual Basic.NET in the future.

Target Audience

Although I was trained as a computer science major, I have done most of my consulting in the Information Systems field. While some computer scientists are striving to become hard-core applications developers who will write the latest operating system from Microsoft, many more programmers are studying to become the information systems professionals of tomorrow. A computer science professional most likely will go on to develop operating systems and application programs like Microsoft Word or Excel. However, information systems professionals may move on to develop database applications, or become network administrators or even database administrators.

The "Coach" series of textbooks is designed specifically for information systems professionals. Their needs are unique in that they require non-mathematical and nonscientific examples. They need examples that relate to topics they already know. Therefore, The Visual Basic Coach is comprised of business, humorous, and sports examples so that readers can relate to the problems they are trying to solve.

The Visual Basic Coach is perfect whether you intend to program for the rest of your life, are required to take a course in school, or wish to merely gain an appreciation for programming. This text is designed to be a standalone volume for students who are not majoring in computer science learning Visual Basic. It also may function as a bridge between your current level of understanding and more advanced Visual Basic texts.

Author's Approach

Because the audience for The Visual Basic Coach is different from most programming texts, I have taken a unique approach by applying many techniques learned from coaching athletes to the teaching of computer programming. I have competed as an international athlete representing the United States and currently am coaching Olympic hopefuls in the sport of race walking. In many ways the teaching of race walking is similar to that of computer programming.

Race walking is a complex sport that requires combining Olympian endurance with a very complicated technique. In order to master it, it requires a great deal of practice and attention to the details of proper technique. Coaches do not start athletes by sending them into competition on the first day of practice. Instead, many coaches require athletes to repeat drills over and over again until they have mastered the techniques of the sport.

Similarly, instead of beginning with problem solving, this text teaches sound Visual Basic syntactical fundamentals first. While learning the basic building blocks of Visual Basic, we will perform programming drills repeatedly until readers understand the fundamentals and subtleties of Visual Basic. This approach contrasts with many other texts trying to be more of a complete reference manual instead of an instructional textbook. They introduce too many constructs of Visual Basic before solidifying a mastery of the most required Visual Basic syntax. While we do not focus on these additional features, we have added some of the important ones at the end of each chapter in a special section that can be skipped by novice programmers.

Throughout the text we will present new features of Visual Basic, explain their syntax, and present drills that explore the subtleties of the syntax. We supplement these drills with real-world examples of programming problems and build on the knowledge gained from these drills. Because there are so many options in Visual Basic, topics deemed optional are added at the end of each chapter in a Coach's Corner so that more advanced students can learn them, while students looking for a basic understanding of the language can skip over them.

While writing the proper programs is important, so is motivating the people around you to get the job done. The idea is the same, whether it is breaking up the monotony of a long racewalk by joking around or breaking up the dryness of a computer text. The Visual Basic Coach finds different ways to motivate and amuse you as you read through the text.

Scope of Coverage

Visual Basic Coach covers Visual Basic as though readers have never learned a programming language before. Starting with a brief introduction to computer languages and where Visual Basic fits in, we get students rolling immediately with an example that illustrates the reason Visual Basic has the word "Visual" in its title. Students are introduced to the development environment and how to create an application with images and text.

Once a basic understanding of the environment is mastered, a basic understanding of programming constructs follows: variables, operators, conditional statements, loops, and functions. These constructs are used to develop programs that solve relatively simple but useful problems. Interweaved between learning these constructs are the introduction of many of the basic controls used regularly by Visual Basic developers. Instead of just listing these controls, examples are given that motivate the benefit of one control over the other based on the goal of the application.

Once the students have gained a firm understanding of basic Visual Basic, we'll concentrate on additional features of Visual Basic such as arrays, user-defined types, and files. While many introductory classes in Visual Basic do not cover extensive advanced topics, we have made it easy to select the ones that an instructor wishes to add to his or her course. Both simple and advanced coverage of databases are covered in two separate chapters. Also included are sections on drag and drop interfaces, graphic routines, multiform applications, Menus and basic object-oriented programming.

Rounding out the text is a chapter highlighting the issues with developing in Visual Basic .NET. It is meant to be used as a primer to prepare developers who are familiar with Visual Basic for programming in Visual Basic .NET.

Pedagogy

Drills
The Visual Basic Coach has many strengths that separate it from other Visual Basic texts. We all know that you cannot learn to program by merely reading a textbook in a narrative format. The Visual Basic Coach combats this with around 100 drills that provide students with immediate feedback on their understanding of what they just learned. The drills are presented as questions and their complete solutions with detailed explanations are included at the end of each chapter.

Tips
Throughout the chapters frequent tips highlight key programming issues.

Warnings
Commonly made mistakes are highlighted with a Warning Box.

VB .NET Alerts
There are many instances in which an application developed in a Visual Basic 6.0-oriented way will experience problems in Visual Basic .NET. Wherever these issues exist, we will point out how to avoid them.

End-of-chapter Material

Key Terms
At the end of each chapter all new terms introduced within the chapter will be listed with a condensed definition of the word.

Case Studies
In each chapter you will find a case study that focuses on the skills developed in the chapter in a practical, real-world example. Throughout most of the text, the case studies focus on a business owner creating a system that will process payroll for his company. It is simple and clear to follow. We provide the problem statement, discuss its solution, and then provide the coded solution. By immediately reinforcing the skills learned in the chapter, retention will be greatly improved.

Coach's Corner
At the end of each chapter, optional topics are included to round out students' knowledge of the topics introduced in each chapter.

Additional Exercises
Finally, each chapter is ends with a series of short-answer questions and programming assignments for students to practice what they have learned in the chapter.

Different Course Options

This book is designed for a one or two semester introductory programming sequence for non-computer science majors. In general, each chapter builds on the last and is designed to follow sequentially. However, the text was designed with the idea that many topics are optional. Many of these optional topics are presented at the end of each chapter in the Coach's Corners. These topics can be added or removed without adding dependency issues. Additionally, while chapters 1-7 are fairly mandatory for any programming sequence, many of the additional chapters can be skipped based on the preferences of the instructor.

To The Students

So you're taking a computer course. Odds are you'll either love it or hate it. It's the job of this text to help you through it. Regardless of why you are taking the course you need to learn the material presented by your teacher. If you follow my advice, the process will be a lot easier. This book is designed to be interactive. DO NOT just read the drills. Try them. You will learn much more that way. While some of the examples are dry and simply there to help with your mastery of the Visual Basic syntax, many more are colorful statements from thin...