Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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112 of 112 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
It's For Absolute Beginners, Folks!, September 20, 2000
I am interested in pursuing a career change to the world of programming and have been told by friends in the know that Visual Basic is a good language to start out with for its ease of use compared to other languages and its applicability in the business world today. I therefore went out and bought two different introductory Visual Basic books and Microsoft's Visual Basic learning edition. What I found in reading these books is that they give a good introduction to VB, but then at some point, the authors of the books forget you are a beginner and start introducing topics that seem somewhat advanced with very little explanation. After a while, your head starts to spin and you give up.I then read some reviews on Amazon.com about other VB books and a lot of folks mentioned the John Smiley series as a good one to start with if you are new to programming and VB. So I picked up his first book. And I'm glad I did. True, the classroom dialog that makes up a fair portion of the book is occaisionally inane, tedious and repetitious. However, if you hear about the same concept again in Chapters 2, 5, 6, 10 and 14, it burns in your head and you aren't as likely to forget it. Generally, this repetition is only for a sentence of two to refresh our memories. But it works. I also think the use of dialog of getting the information communicated allows for a more relaxing way of learning the material than paragraphs chock full of technical data that may take you a half hour just to get through six pages. I agree that you'll probably get more information out of the typical 700 page VB book than Smiley's book, but I'll also bet you aren't as likely to get through that book either, especially if you are a beginner. I was able to get through Smiley's book in less than two weeks at about two hours a night (working through all the many examples he provides). I am currently in the process of skimming the book a second time to strengthen my understanding of some of the tougher concepts of the book (i.e. arrays took a little bit to understand - for me at least). I have picked up the other three books in the Smiley VB series, which I hope to get through over the next couple of months. Then I might pick up those "beginner" books I started out with again and pick up some more concepts to expand my knowledge base in VB. Overall, Smiley's book is a great way to start learing VB programming, but only if you are agreeable to a new teaching approach and you aren't expecting to learn advanced concepts in VB.
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51 of 52 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
THE BEST PLACE TO START!, February 16, 2000
I posted my first review for this book almost a year ago, at which time I gave it a five star rating. I have gone on from there into a deeper study of Visual Basic. The wisdom of hindsight allows me to honestly say that this book has provided the foundation for all my subsequent Visual Basic skills. Prior to discovering this book, I "attempted" to work through the first chapter in several so-called beginning VB programming books only to give up in utter frustration because the author "assumed" his readers to posess far more knowledge than most beginners actually have. John Smiley really does start at the beginning without making the reader feel like an idiot. If you are even thinking about learnig Visual Basic I strongly recommend that you start with this book. Don't waste your time with any other books...You can use the other books later and you'll actually be able to understand them because of the foundation you will acquire from doing the project in this book.Since I have completed this book almost a year ago I have purchased the other 3 books written by John Smiley. I have posted a five star review for each book in the series. As good as this book is, the other John Smiley books are even better. This book however, is the best palce to start!
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47 of 50 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Best VB Learning Approach, February 13, 2000
John Smiley presents a complete learning environment that builds a solid programming foundation. Each book individually and collectively engages and immerses the novice programmer into the richness of the Visual Basic development environment without overwhelming you in its complexity. From Learn to Program with Visual Basic, through Databases and Objects I found learning VB programming fun, and instructive at the same time. John's use of examples to support the development of a "real world" programming task proved important in understanding VB programming, the Integrated Development Environment and it various features or tools. Using the same program, you helped create, through three books dealing with different aspects of VB programming helped solidify the programming experience, and enhance learning. More than anything else, John comes out of those pages as your guide and mentor allowing you to pick up those intangibles that come from a skilled programmer, and educator. He leaves you, and encourages further study, having given you the fundamentals to go on and tackle more advanced VB topics, because you now know how to program with VB. I kid you not. I jumped into learning VB using the MS Visual Basic Programmer's guide, and various MSDN materials. It was like going up hill in snow and ice, I wasn't getting anywhere fast! After going through John's three books, MS VB programmers guide, and other materials just fell into place, because I now had the VB skills and knowledge to appreciate and understand the presented material.
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