Rating: 
Summary: More Money Well Spent on Microsoft Product Promotion
Review: Even if you got this on sale as I did, I think you'd be better off saving your money as well as your time by getting VB Step By Step by Micheal Halvorson. The Halvorson book happens to be published by Microsoft Press, but the author likes to teach programming and shows you VB by code examples; he is also objective and doesn't waste your time making obsequious praise and promotion of Microsoft brand PRODUCTS as this Sams book does. Unless of course you like paying money to read advertising copy telling you how great Microsoft is and why all its products are flawless. Funny, because I thought this book was going to be a book on programming.
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent Reference
Review: Excellent book for learning VB and an excellent reference. Gets right to the point with great examples and code.
Rating:
Summary: So- So...dissapointed
Review: First, I started looking at some tutorials online on visual basics, because i got interested in programming. And as most of you already know, it is hard reading off of the computer scren for hours. SO I went to the bookstore, and after looking at the selection of books, the title "Learn in 24 hours" caught my attention. I eagerly went home and started reading. The first few sections of the book take the easy topic way to slow. taking 4 sections on just the interface is NOT good. Then when it gets to the programming, it lost me when it started introducing the boleans and string types, and all this useless junk by just THROWING the stuff one one big chart at me, instead of going over each datatype..I eventually understood what it meant, with a help of a friend, and went on....the next few chapters were OKAY, but then when it got into modular programming and such, around hour 14, it COMPLETELY lost me. I think this is a poorly written book! I think tutorials that are online written by other kids are even better than this nonesense.
Rating: 
Summary: Good for beginners
Review: Having read some of the articles being written about this book, it made me think. The title of this book should give the person the idea what he/she is getting into. It is giving you the basics in the quickest time possible, nothing more. So why all the ado?
This book is good for re-hashing or for someone new to VB as a supplement to what the student may be getting from a class room or work. Nothing more, and for that it works well. With a title such as "Sams Teach Yourself in 24 Hours" would you expect to be an awesome programmer? You won't. Will it help you as a supplement to a class or work? It will.
Some of the criticisms of this book are really not called for. It is for all intents and purposes a decent book.
Rating:
Summary: Rather dull..
Review: I actually learned more VB stuff in Access 97 than I did in this book. Fortunately, I did not buy the book, but when I was reading through it I couldn't help but wonder "Why include Visual Basic 5 CCE when you are attempting to teach Visual Basic 6?"
Rating:
Summary: useless and confusing
Review: I am prety good with computers, so one day I decided to get into programming. I talked to a friend of mine who programs for a living and he told me to start with visual basic. I picked up a copy of "Sams Teach yourself visual basic in 24 hours" and eagerly opened it up when i got home. I found the opening chapters over explained and repetitive, but despite my incredible boredom i forced myself to move on. I eventually read up to about chapter 10 when i became totally confused. The provided examples would sometimes not work, and it left me frustrated. So there i was, stranded in the middle of this book, consed, bored and frustrated. After that day, i put down the book, and i havent opened it since, and im happy i didn't.
Rating: 
Summary: Good as intro but...
Review: I bought this book having done no programming in nearly 10 years (since a couple Pascal classes in college). I learned the BASIC language on an Apple IIe well before that. I chose this particular text because it came with a working model of VB6 which most of the other books I looked at did not do. Anyway, the material presented is very easy to understand. The lessons are easy to complete in an hour each. Once you've completed all 24 lessons, you'll have a good grasp on many facets of the VB6 language and environment. However...there are problems. First, the book gives examples and suggestions to the reader who is using Visual Studio Professional. That's all well and good but the book DOESN'T COME WITH THAT. The book should assume all you've got is the Working Model version that came with it and that's it. Second, some of the structure of the lessons make no sense. For example, in the middle of the lesson on message boxes and input boxes, there's a detour to cover remarks. Huh? Third, some of the lessons require knowledge of later chapters to complete their assignments. One of the assignments in Chapter 10 requires knowledge from Chapter 11 to be completed. Fourth, as others have mentioned, there are some typos and mistakes in the text. For example, in Chapter 17 on menus, the author has you step by step create a menu system with items for New, Open, Close & Exit in the menu. However, the text completely skips over Close and does Exit twice, the first time referencing the Close option that was never done! Finally, this book does nothing to tie everything together. There's no overall application developed during the course of the book, there's nothing here on developing anything more than very, very short procedures and examples. This would the book's biggest flaw IMO. When I stepped up to a more difficult text ("Teach Yourself Game Programming With Visual Basic 6") after completing this one, I found myself lacking skills and knowledge in a number of areas that I should have known about. To sum up, I'd recommend this book to a beginner as an intro. Just be aware that you'll likely need another "beginner" book after this one to broaden your knowledge. "24 Hours" gets your feet wet in an easy-to-read, gentle fashion that will prepare you for other, drier, texts.
Rating:
Summary: Good as intro but...
Review: I bought this book having done no programming in nearly 10 years (since a couple Pascal classes in college). I learned the BASIC language on an Apple IIe well before that. I chose this particular text because it came with a working model of VB6 which most of the other books I looked at did not do. Anyway, the material presented is very easy to understand. The lessons are easy to complete in an hour each. Once you've completed all 24 lessons, you'll have a good grasp on many facets of the VB6 language and environment. However...there are problems. First, the book gives examples and suggestions to the reader who is using Visual Studio Professional. That's all well and good but the book DOESN'T COME WITH THAT. The book should assume all you've got is the Working Model version that came with it and that's it. Second, some of the structure of the lessons make no sense. For example, in the middle of the lesson on message boxes and input boxes, there's a detour to cover remarks. Huh? Third, some of the lessons require knowledge of later chapters to complete their assignments. One of the assignments in Chapter 10 requires knowledge from Chapter 11 to be completed. Fourth, as others have mentioned, there are some typos and mistakes in the text. For example, in Chapter 17 on menus, the author has you step by step create a menu system with items for New, Open, Close & Exit in the menu. However, the text completely skips over Close and does Exit twice, the first time referencing the Close option that was never done! Finally, this book does nothing to tie everything together. There's no overall application developed during the course of the book, there's nothing here on developing anything more than very, very short procedures and examples. This would the book's biggest flaw IMO. When I stepped up to a more difficult text ("Teach Yourself Game Programming With Visual Basic 6") after completing this one, I found myself lacking skills and knowledge in a number of areas that I should have known about. To sum up, I'd recommend this book to a beginner as an intro. Just be aware that you'll likely need another "beginner" book after this one to broaden your knowledge. "24 Hours" gets your feet wet in an easy-to-read, gentle fashion that will prepare you for other, drier, texts.
Rating:
Summary: Filled in most of the holes
Review: I had a basic knoledge of vb and some knoledge of random advanced topics befoer i read this book. After I read this book, it willed in all the holes that i never learned about and allowed me to move on to move advanced books. The reason that is had 4 stars, not 5 is because in the last few chapters, it goes through advanced topics without explaining it. I recomend this book for beginners and beginner-intermediates.
Rating:
Summary: Quick Start on Visual Basic! Definitely for beginner's only.
Review: I had been working for my company as an administrative assistant for about 6 months. I am now transitioning into becoming a visual basic programmer. This book got me on my feet quickly! This is the best book I purchased for this endeavor. I came in with no knowledge of the Visual Basic environment. The only experience I had was with BASIC as a kid and with PASCAL in high school. Now, I find it rather easy and can whip out a program in very little time. This book definitely helped me to get where I am and I now make much more money than I did before. And is spending this amount for this book worth it? DEFINITELY! I went from making just over $20k to making almost $36k. This is worth that investment! I hope this has been helpful. Have a great day!
| 
