Microsoft Visual Basic 2008: Comprehensive Concepts and Techniques (Shelly Cashman) (Paperback)

by Gary B. Shelly (Author), Corinne Hoisington (Author)
Key Phrases: hotel room selection, exit window, ocean tours, Cengage Learning, All Rights Reserved, Windows Form (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
Microsoft Visual Basic 2008 for Windows, Mobile, Web, Office, and Database Applications: Comprehensive teaches students the essentials of computer programming using the latest Visual Basic programming language, Visual Basic 2008.

About the Author
Gary B. Shelly wrote and published his first computer education textbook in 1969. More than twenty million copies of Shelly Cashman Series' textbooks have been sold. Gary and a talented group of contributing authors have produced books on computer programming, computer concepts, and application software that are the leading textbooks in the computer technology market today. Gary has hosted the annual Shelly Cashman Institute, a week-long training event focusing on the latest topics in technology, for the past 34 years.

Corinne Hoisington is a professor at Central Virginia Community College in Lynchburg, VA with over 20 years of teaching experience. Professor Hoisington is the 2004 recipient of the Microsoft Most Valuable Professional in Computer Programming. She also serves on the editorial board for the International Merlot Online Project in education. Corinne is the co-author of the Shelly Cashman Series' Visual Basic 2008 and Visual Basic 2005 texts and the author of A Guided Tour of Office 2007, A Guided Tour of Vista, and A Guided Tour of Expression Web.

Product Details

• Paperback: 1016 pages
• Publisher: Course Technology; 1 edition (July 7, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1423927168
• ISBN-13: 978-1423927167
• Product Dimensions: 10.8 x 8.1 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #362,555 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Ok book, not great, May 29, 2009

By	Russell Peeples - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Normally, Shelley-Cashman books are very good and very trustworthy. This book, although it does contain some very good information, is filled with lots of mistakes. I realize this is a first edition so some errors such as typos are expected.

Up until chapter 7 the book is very good. You can tell, beginning with ch. 7, that the style of writing changes and a lot of the step-by-step information is wrong. I think either this was simply copied from another book or it was the work of another writer with little writing experience. Also, some of the info is outdated. The chapter dealing with writing apps for smartphones keeps mentioning PocketPC and Windows CE. To my understanding, Windows Mobile replaced both several years ago.

As for the projects, the steps to create forms could have been made a lot easier to understand. It is written in paragraph style. Instead, chart-style would have been easier for the student to understand.

There are some lessons that seem to be out of order. In my opinion, the aforementioned chapters (7 deals with web apps and 12 (I think it is) deals with mobile apps) are out of place. By that, I mean they should have been placed at the end of the book instead of between chapters. The book takes you through forms and databases then suddenly it starts talking about web apps. Yes, I know web apps include databases, but the book should have talked about stand-alone apps in their entirety (as it relates to this course) then showed the neat stuff about web and mobile apps at the end to whet the student's appetite for more to encourage further learning of VB.

I am sure the author knows her stuff and really meant to do a good job with this book. But being a first edition, they really need to thoroughly review it and make corrections and changes with the student in mind.

At this point, I don't know for sure if I would recommend this as a must have book. If the problems were corrected in the next edition, I would very likely say yes to it.