Customer Reviews

Visual Basic 2005 Express Edition For Dummies (For Dummies (Computers))

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

 

 

Visual Basic has had a long and somewhat torturous history from being a simple clean language when it was introduced to becoming part of the .NET Framework (whatever that is) and getting much more complex. The Express Edition, as used in this book, seems to be an attempt to go back to their roots and make a clean simple language again.

This book is intended to be an introduction to programming for a complete beginner. It intends to take the beginner from plugging in the CD to getting a working program doing something. The applications he uses as examples are quite simple. They don't do much, but then again, they are intended for the complete beginner. And while simple they do discuss some things like interfacing to the web or to a database that can become parts of fairly serious applications.

The book is supplied with two CD's to assist in the programming challenge. Some of this is software, some of it is instructional video.

You know when you find a book with only very high and very low reviews that you are likely to love it or hate it. Most programming books are very detail/left brain oriented. Not surprising as the majority of programmers are as well. A few are right brain/big picture based. Either can be written at an introductory or advanced level. The problem is that if a left brain person reads a right brain type book they will hate it and vice versa. This book is one of the big picture/just what you need at the moment right brain books. This had also been the orientation and market positioning of VB since it's inception until .net and had made it the most used programming language going. Along the way the author does take many pot shots at Microsoft moving VB so far away from it's roots with .net. This move has indeed caused VB to lose ground in the market. Programmer thinking would appear to be "If the new VB is this hard to learn, I might as well work in another language that pays more." If shots at Microsoft bother you, you will have a problem with this book. The author feels that Microsoft has moved VB back towards it's roots with the Express edition. This would appear to be true.
One major slam this book has gotten is the lack of full blown line by line projects. Given the orientation of the book, this is probably a valid complaint. A right brainer might be oriented towards "Just give me the main building blocks, let me put them together the way I want, and discover the others later when I need them." This approach would likely leave everyone else stuck.
As someone who taught programming for over 10 years and now works in industry building data mining tools (primarily using MS products), I am very impressed with the content that WAS included in this book.
I believe that the addition of a couple more short end to end examples early on and a bit of moderation of the MS bashing (though justified) would have greatly expanded the position of this book as a mainstream "one stop shopping" introductory text. As it is, it is a great suppliment to one of the more dry "cookbook" type offerings that are out there everywhere.

Bruce Kirkpatrick
MCSE, MCSD, MCDBA, OCP, ...

The book is great a explaining the items, but there are no examples to practice what you learn. I have always liked for dummies books, but this one lost my respect.

The author is mainly interested in slamming Microsoft and object-oriented programming. Unfortunately, he never gets off this soapbox and gets around to teaching anyone how to write a complete program using VB Express. A complete and disappointing waste of time and money. I will most certainly avoid works by this author in the future.

This is a good book, I'm very suspicious of the bad reviews. I do think I know where they come from though.

This book is in true "Dummies" form and is directed at a specific audience (that I belong to). I am NOT a "professional" programmer. Nor, do I wish to be. I have used visual basic for the past 10 years or so, in an off and on, as needed basis for work. I don't know about you, but budgets are tight where I'm at, and we don't have the money to hire a "professional" everytime we think up some very specific "wouldn't it be nice if we could..." type of application.
If you have the desire or need, to create very specific "down and dirty" applications to suit your needs, then here's the good news: Visual Basic 2005 Express IS directed at you. And, This book WILL suit your needs. As with all Dummies books, it describes the basics of Visual BASIC 2005 Express in a "just the facts" kind of manner. It will gently hold your hand and walk you through, even if you have no prior experience. Will your programs be flashy or fancy? No. Are you going to get your Microsoft certification after reading it? No. Will you learn how design a video game. No. But who cares! You WILL be able to design small apps to crunch YOUR numbers, keep YOUR database or print the reports YOU need for YOUR work or hobby... in a manner that makes sense to YOU. If you've ever had to work with a "professional" programmer to develop an app, then you'll immediately see the advantage to this. Because the little geek may know how to use the computer, but he doesn't have a clue about YOUR work.
The other reviews that are so ANGRY (gee whiz, chill out.) are very unwarranted. When you READ the book, the complaints against Microsoft ARE justified. Especially if you've ever used previous versions of BASIC it'd be readily apparent.
Let me sum it up for you: BASIC was originally designed for the "common man." And when it went from QBASIC to Visual Basic (a great thing) it still held that concept. But as time progressed, BASIC changed. BASIC originally had a very simple syntax (grammar), but has slowly went toward the more cryptic languages, (Perl, C++, COBOL) etc. THIS WASN'T NECCESSARY. In fact, that was the beautiful thing about the original visual basic. The design interface did all the cryptic stuff in the back ground and you just used plain old friendly basic on your end. Visual Basic .NET is VERY powerful... it's also the worst version of visual basic for the non professional user yet to be created. BUT don't you apologize "part time programmer", for you are the intended user Visual Basic. (Straight from Gates' mouth)

AND DO NOT DESPAIR, because the good news is that MS Visual Basic 2005 EXPRESS has made a good move back towards the true intent of the BASIC language. If you are completely new to programming, NOW is a great time to jump on the bandwagon, with VB Express. Hopefully the next version will be even better and go back towards the true intent of the language.

And if you doubt anything I've said, Go look at the miserable sales figures for VB.NET. And then look how quick Microsoft switched from VB.Net to VB 2005 Express. They, maybe, hopefully, have realized the error of their ways and are changing the software back to it's original intent. When you sum it up, the fact of the matter is that, the programmers at Microsoft got lazy. The intent of all things "VISUAL" was to have the design environment do the grunt work and allow you to use a simple easy to read progamming language to tie it together.

Here you go: Are you a professional in your field, or are you a serious hobbyist? Do you wish you had that one little application for that one little purpose that you can't find anywhere? THEN: Visual Basic 2005 Express is for you AND Visual Basic 2005 Express for Dummies is the book to get you started.

Do you want to be a "professional" programmer and design (useless) video games or super huge corporate network apps for major banking companies? Then you are in the wrong place, with the wrong book and learning the WRONG LANGUAGE! Go learn C++ and find some subterranean cubicle to reside, forget what daylight looks like and lose the ability to carry on a normal conversation with normal people. (Are girls really impressed with the fact that you're the LAN network champ at DOOM?)

WOOO HOOO! I'm not a "professional" programmer and I'm proud! Viva la normal folks!

Being on a budget I was very happy to hear about the 'express' versions of Visual Studio 2005 (and even more happy when Microsoft decided to give them away for free). I was also happy to see that a Dummies book had already been written so I could learn the features of the product. Richard Mansfield appears to be a knowledgable resource for Visual Basic and a true fan of the language...sort of. Mansfield longs for the days of classic VB and spends an abnormal amount of time using the book as a platform to tell Microsoft what they did wrong. This white space would have been better served telling readers how to use the product instead of bashing 'C' based programming languages. (By the way, I am not a 'C' based programmer.) Mansfield also wrote the 'All in One Desk Reference' on Visual Basic.NET where he spends an abnormal amount of time in the chapter on Object Oriented Programming telling the reader that it isn't very useful. I think Wiley Publishing needs to be more careful in giving Richard Mansfield any writing assignments on Visual Basic.NET. There are some better books by Wrox Press and Microsoft Press on this. On the other hand the Dummies [...]

Buy this book
If you are
1) VB6 users
2) VB enthusiasts
3) old age VB fanatics
4) never care for C/C++ or Java and want to stick to Visual Basic only

Else
not recommended....

If you simply want to learn the new user interface of VB8 (Visual Studio 2005 version) and see what you can do with the upgraded ToolBox items, I recommend Visual Basic 2005 Express: Now Playing (Book and CD edition) Wallace Wang explains much better about what VB2005 version can do without unnecessary information.

The nice thing about the 'For Dummies' series of books is that you can quickly grasp the basics of a new product or software version including all of the tricks and techniques added to this version. You don't get in-depth treatment of every feature, but you usually get at least some understanding of of the details you want to explore in greater depth elsewhere.

With VB 2005 Express, there are a lot of changed features and I was eager to find the 'For Dummies' book on the subject. I may be a dummy now on the subject, but I don't need to remain that way forever.

Unfortunately, this writer has a serious Microsoft phobia and seems convinced that when Visual Basic 6 was released, that was as far as programming technology should ever proceed.
On every other page, he complains about how Microsoft has been taken over by the evil "C-Programmers" and how you should just ignore any feature with "C-Like" characteristics because VB should be the language for people who don't ever want to think.

On most of the remaining pages he tells us how we can tailor the interface so that it will produce code just like and just as powerful as that produced by VB6. I expect that his next book might be titled,"How to convert your DVD movies to VHS" (Or perhaps Betamax).

The fact that I rated the book 2-Stars may seem generous considering the tone of the review, but then I was not well versed on VB6. I used Boreland's Delphi at the time. From the beginning that product had many of the features this author argues against, so I considered this book my "Visual Basic 6 For Dummies" and filed it accordingly

The most incoherent, slapped together, piece of garbage ever to be called a book. This guy sholdn't be allowed to write anything anymore, including his name.

It's truly unfortunate the publishers could not find an author to write this book who was not still mourning the demise of Visual Basic 6. It seems every page contains some reference to the needless complexity of the .NET framework or OOP practices. Since Visual Basic 2005 is an object oriented language based on the .NET framework, it would have perhaps been more appropriate to have a book written by an author familiar and comfortable with these modern programming techniques.