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Summary: New to vb & looking for clarity?...Smiley's the man!
Review: I started my journey to learn vb with another book. I got through it, but there were so many fundamental programming tasks that I was still confused about. I figured I would skip through this book to answer the nagging questions I still had about variable arrays, functions, etc. Little did I know that Smiley is the single best teacher of vb I have encountered. I worked in a software company for years, and I have never seen a person that could explain programming in such simple terms. I know that some people don't care for the subplot, but I think it says a lot about his character and the pride he has in his work. Anyone that has that much pride in the work they create is going to give you everything they have. And Smiley certainly did!
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Summary: Best book to start learning VB !
Review: You know why it's worth it to buy this book?1. The whole book is focused on a case-study. You are going to build a working program(a KIOSK program) phase-by-phase. This way, you are exposed to real-world programming from the start, not just "Hello, World!". 2. The building of the China Shop Program is based on the SDLC (System Development Life Cycle), which is what most programmers go through when developing a software. The whole scenario is presented, such as when John is conducting a preliminary study, how the students create program interface drafts, etc... So after reading this book, you will know how to start developing a software! 3. The book's layout and text won't keep you bored. Rather, it will make you read more and more, until you know it's been over 2 hours! 4. You will be independent after reading this book. After reading this book, I can understand the MSDN library better, and now able to create programs by reading the MSDN library text and looking through the MSDN library sample codes. -- This book gets me started in learning the VB syntax quickly. After finishing this book, I could create an IRC client using the IRC draft and the MSDN library! Highly recommended for people who want to learn the easiest programming tool in the easiest-to-understand way.
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Summary: Best of the bunch
Review: I tried several Visual Basic books, but agree with the common complaint that they tend to "rush" the learner by having them quickly create a totally meaningless program just to satisfy their urge to dive right into coding. It's like teaching your kid how to drive 100 mph before teaching him how to steer a car. This is why I love Mr. Smiley's book. I feel he does an admirable job of helping the reader know WHY and HOW he is creating, rather than "gee, I feel like a programmer, I created a program and have NO FRIGGEN CLUE how it works." The first couple chapters are almost exclusively devoted to the SDLC and proper planning of a program. It can be a tedious read at times, due to the "classroom style" text, but Mr. Smiley is hitting on all cylinders in this book and I recommend it 100% to any BEGINNER who wants to learn the right way. Mr. Smiley's book has received knocks for being too "simple". A few reviewers complained about Smiley teaching about KB and MB. Well, he also discusses registers, stacks, processes, threads, DLL's, Windows handles, and how they relate to programming in the same pages, so how is that too simple to a beginner programmer? If you find it too simple, look for a book without the big words "ABSOLUTE BEGINNERS" emblazoned across the front. Otherwise, if you are a TRUE absolute beginner, get this book. You most definitely will not regret it.
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Summary: Learning it the way it should be taught
Review: This is the book to learn about Visual Basic, I have purchased various others, which either dived right into a hello world program, or some calculation program, which just wasted 10 minutes of your time only to find out that you have no clue how and why you just typed that code in. If you want to learn about programming, then pick this book up as it will give you the correct approach to programming, I strongly believe that once you finish this book, learning other programming languages is going to be easier, since you pretty much grabbed the basics from this book in the first place. John approaches the programming aspect in terms of placing you in a classroom session, with other people,I have to admit it was first hard to grasp that learning concept, but the way on how information is passed on to you and what you expect to ask in terms of Visual Basic is very well covered from someone that has no programming experience at all. It took me 6 days exactly to cover 6 chapters, thats with 40 minutes reading and implementing the exercises, everytime you complete a chapter you know for a fact that you clearly understood the objective of the earlier chapter. This book is for beginners, and I hope we see more examples of how a beginners books should be written.
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Summary: Its really for your grandma.
Review: This book is not terrible. I've found some useful information. I've never programmed in VB before, but I didn't expect this book to start at the very, very beginning. I've put it aside temporarily because of its slow pace. The book is written as if you're in a classroom with other people. If you could imagine taking someone that is completly afraid of a computer and expect them to start programming, this is the book they would need. If you have ever written any code, or even used MS Word, you'd probably have more experience than needed to start at the beginning of this book...literally. I hope you take this review to heart. It really is "For Absolute Beginnners" as it says. I rated it 4 starts, because for the people that would like to start from the beginning (describing the difference between KB and MB...this is actually chapter 2 or 3 I think.), I've not come across a better book for that type of person. Its not bad, just not what I had expected...hence 4 stars. I think I got to chapter 4 and picked up another book I had instead. I will read this one at some point. Just not when I'm under a deadline. Hope this helps..
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Summary: Yes, you will learn to program
Review: First of all this book comes with a cdrom including a full working version of visual basic 6. Second, the book teaches you as if you are one of the students in a classroom. This way you often get important information mentioned twice or more as if one of the students in the class asked about methods already discussed. The main visual basic project developed in the book is quite realistic. After "finishing" the project, it is enhanced by several advanced methods such as the windows registry, error trapping and reading and writing to notepad text files. The answers to the quizzes are in the appendix. The web site promised by the publisher does not exist, but the authors web site is up. The author's web site includes several class "handouts" that are useful. I was surprised at how I improved my skills after reading this book.
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Summary: A book for total morons.
Review: I gave this book one star because I could not give it any lower rating. Buy the Que book or the Dummie book. You'll actually learn something from one of those and their probably cheaper than this one. If you've never seen a computer before this may be the book for you but then again if you've never seen a computer before you certainly wouldn't know what Visual Basic is.
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Summary: New to programming
Review: Wordy, but excellent!! Great examples. Definitely user friendly.
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Summary: Great Professor and Author!
Review: I have taken my first Visual Basic class from Professor Smiley and purchased this book for the class. I was VERY impressed with the writing and style that the professor uses in this book. I have become very bored with some other programming books, but being that he writes this with you following along on one of his classes makes it much more interesting and easier to understand. Great excercises in the book also make learning alot easier! I would highly recommend this book for anyone looking to learn Visual Basic. I will definitely be attending more classes and purchasing more books by Professsor Smiley.
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Summary: Buy this now!
Review: If you are interested in learning Visual Basic 6.0, or even just taking your first step in programming, this is a great book to look at. I would strongly recommend this as a great introduction, not only to this tool but to programming itself. Rarely have I seen the Systems Development Life Cycle discussed in these learn on your own books. That is a major philosophy in programming that is usuall not discussed unless you go to school. One other great thing about this book is the use of a true project to get you through. You don't just get handed some code to cut and paste, you develop a whole project over time. I have read books on HTML, Perl, JavaScript, ASP's, JSP's, Java, and several other approaches, but I don't think I've ever been this impressed by a book for beginners. For someone not familiar enough with programming to tackle an O'Reilly publication this is one of the best you can find.
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