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Summary: beginners, go for it
Review: I have read many other programming books for beginners (C++, Java, Perl) and they always start with higly technical, and confusing stuff. With this one, it was quite simple to grab teh ideas and concepts. The layout of the book (a university VBasic class) makes the hole thing smooth. After 2 weeks of reading the book, I made my first application (simple, but it works nice)..this didn't happen with the other languages. SO if you are a beginner of VBasic, don't even think....get this one...it's really worth buying this book. Ciao
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Summary: This book is a must for beginners
Review: This book was great, not only was it easy to use, but it was organized and layed out very well. The huge index alowed you to find any subject within seconds, great!. This book is a must if you are beginning, it will tech you the basics, Mr. Smiley has a great way of writing, he doesn't try to impress anyone with his english, so you can understand everything he is talking about. And he just makes it easy, and fun, to learn. Great job Mr. Smiley
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Summary: Comprehensible explanations
Review: I have just completed 2 college courses in computers, both of which touched on the Program Development Life Cycle. In chapter one of this book, John Smiley covers the concepts consisely and answered questions that we were never able to cover in any depth in the class. Using explanation and example, Mr. Smiley gets the point across in terms everyone, even a programming newbie like myself can understand. I think this is a great way to start the book and can't wait to continue on to the next chapter.
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Summary: If your seasoned at programming or starting out ......
Review: Well done John Smiley, this is an excellent book written by someone who knows how to dispense with the jargon and talk to you in terms you can understand. Working with this book puts you right in John's classroom as you develop a working VB system along with other students. The text is very informative and the tone of the book is perfect ...... Well Done
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Summary: this book is excellent
Review: For many years I wrote software in Fortran and later in C for mainframes and later PC's as part of my work. I retired 8 years ago. Recently I decided I wanted to write for Windows using Visual Basic. I have bought several introductory books and generally have been disappointed and frustrated. It's easy to reproduce the code and get it to work but understanding it is a different matter.Then I discoverd John Smiley's book and have been delighted. It is brilliant. For example, the explanation of the debugger, not only for errors but for tracing your code, is excellent. The format, being in a class room, has been very well thought out and is comforting for the beginner. Congratulations!
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Summary: John Smiley is a brilliant teacher, writer and programmer.
Review: If you are new to Visual Basic 6 programming, buy this book! If you are a technical trainer of Visual Basic programming, buy this book! John Smiley and ActivePath Publishers have done the students and teachers of programming a great service in creating this wonderfully written and clear book. It was a brilliant (and risky) decision to design the book around a continuous classroom dialog and programming story. It completely works. Smiley doesn't "bring down" the content or concepts for beginners. He just explains the sophisticated and complicated Visual Basic concepts until you are completely clear. You will find yourself actually getting involved with the sample project and the "students" after reading and doing the excellent examples in this book. This is the way people actually learn-- through demonstrations, questions, discussion, iteration and practice. Accomplishing this feat in a computer book is short of amazing.
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Summary: exceptionally good intro to VB6 book
Review: This book is exceptionally well written. It is easy to read, interesting, informative, and entertaining. It is also uncommonly accurate; having encountered numerous errors in my MCSE training texts, it was particularly refreshing to encounter NOT ONE SINGLE PROGRAMMING ERROR in the entire text! This degree of excellence is only achieved when the subject matter is second nature to the author, and that is true in this case. The text is also significantly less expensive then the many self teaching texts available, AND it includes a working copy of VB6, on CD! (The working copy differs from the standard edition in that it contains no help files, and does not permit the creation of finished executables - in other words, you can't compile and distribute your programs.) This text does not cover the entire topic matter; it does give you a thorough grounding, and enable you to 'hit the ground running'. It's perhaps the finest self teaching text I've ever seen. A work of art by a Master Craftsman. Highly, highly recommended!Charlie Worton, MCSE
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Summary: A great introduction to the wonderful world of Visaul Basic!
Review: This book started out with a bang. The first 3 chapters really got me going. Along about chapter 4 the book seemed to lose its focus. At that time I bought a copy of "Visual Basic 6.0 Step by Step" and worked through the first several chapters before coming back to this book where I left off. From that point on I could hardly put it down. Compared to the Step by Step book, this is truly a beginners book. The exercises are great learning tools and well explained. John Smiley knows how to teach the absolute beginner. Every other beginners book "assumes" a certain level of experience and does not actually start at the beginning with clear explanations. This book does! After working through this excellent book, I can actually understand some of the other "Beginners" books. IF YOU are an absolute beginner like me, this book is a good place to start. I'm now looking forward to the "Professional Programmer Training Books" that hopefully will be authored by John Smiley or his cosmic double. Would love to hear from some of the other reviewers. What books have helped you to take the next step forward?
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Summary: Grammar errors---none that I see!
Review: I don't usually post reviews of books---but when I read the review about this one complaining about pronoun usage, I couldn't resist. Everyone is entitled to an opinion, but to blast this highly entertaining and innovative book for pronouns is ridiculous! If readers are going to post reviews, at least talk about the substance of the book---in this case, Visual Basic. I teach highschool English, and I must tell you that I enjoyed this book immensely. If there's a single grammatical error in the book, I didn't see one. The book's not perfect---there's a typo or two---but the bottom line is that John Smiley's book is the best Visual Basic book for beginners on the market---bar none.
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Summary: Smiley should learn English grammar before he writes more.
Review: I simply cannot tolerate the lack of number agreement when he uses pronouns. Was this book even edited? How am I to trust his knowledge of Visual Basic if he cannot even use English correctly? Perhaps I'm being too harsh, but English and Visual Basic both have rules. I don't think that Dr. Smiley should have ignored English grammar.
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