Rating: 
Summary: Makes VB a piece of cake!
Review: I am super-impressed with this book! I'm about to begin a 2-year web development program at Spokane Community College, and with 6 weeks 'till my classes start I decided to pick up the textbook for the Intro to Visual Basic course and get a head start. I've never done any programming before. It has only been 2 weeks and I'm already halfway through what the course covers. This book is great! I may very well get through the entire book before classes start, and the course doesn't even cover the whole book!The material is presented so clearly that a child could learn to program with this book. The author uses a systematic, step-by-step appproach, and hands-on all the way through, so you're actually programming simple applications right away. I'm actually having fun! Everything is presented in lessons, just like a class. At the end of each lesson are questions and exercises. Very thorough. Then, at the end of every third lesson is a debugging exercise (or 2, or 3) . But a great presentation & clear explanation aren't enough when it comes to learning something like computer programming. That's why I find the exercises very valuable, since practice is the only way to actually learn anything. The exercises are plentiful. Of course, anyone who doesn't want or need 'em can skip 'em. And belive it or not, the book seems to be error-free. And although the approach is at first one of spoon-feeding, as the lessons progress you get to think for yourself more and more, and she throws in a challenge here and there. The CD is great too. Every lesson incorporates applications which are found on the CD. So it's imperative that the CD work, and it does. The only problem I had was when I first loaded everything onto my system there was a file which was "missing" which was necessary for everything to run. It took me a while to hunt it down, but it was there. I just moved it around till it was where it needed to be for the system to find it. Apparently it somehow got placed in the wrong folder on the CD, so the program was looking for it on another path. Once I moved it, everything was cool. Oh, by the way, the CD contains Microsoft VB 6.0. It's a trimmed version, but I understand it will do about 80-90% of VBs full capabilities. In conclusion, this is NOT a book for someone with a programming project at work that they need to do fast and just want a quick & dirty primer. This book is for people who actually want to LEARN the VB programming tools and language. It was obviously designed as a classroom textbook, but Diane Zak has written the thing so carefully, and the presentation is so well thought out that she has inadvertantly eliminated the need for an instructor. I'm not in the habit of telling others what to do, but if you're a beginner and want to learn Visual Basic, you'll be making a big mistake if you pass this one up.
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent for beginner. Good for those with some experience.
Review: I am using this book as part of a college course. Although the explainations are a bit wordy, it is overall a very good book. It clearly defines items such as Object Oriented Programming and all of its components, and many other topics. If you are a beginner you will read most of it carefully. If you have some prior experience with programming, but not visual basic, you will probably skim past parts of it. I liked the book.
Rating:
Summary: For Absolute Beginners (like myself)....
Review: I have read quite a lot about programming even though I have not actually done much of it. ....................... I know how it's done even if I can't do it myself yet. This strange situation has arisen because I have a lot of time to read but very little of that reading occurs in proximity to a computer on which to practice what I've read. Therefore I have a fairly firm theoretical background while lacking in real world experience. This book was a bit of a puzzle for me--a mixture of too simple and just about right. I found it quite tedious in the way that absolutely NOTHING was left unsaid ("put the key in the ignition...turn key away from you...release key after engine start...") in elucidating basic programming concepts, which I understand already from my extensive reading. However, this book excels at telling you HOW to accomplish what you have learned about in theory, and in that regard it was just what this rube needed. A welcome change from the majority of computer books that assume the reader knows more than the book states s/he ought to. If you are an absolute beginner, or a well-versed wannabee who just can't translate book learnin' into intelligible code, this is the book for you.
Rating:
Summary: The best beginners book to Visual Basic programming!
Review: I have taught about five classes to beginning programmers using the previous version of this book. It is outstanding. The students absolutely love this book and find it extremely easy to learn from. It has a very easy to follow step by step approach. Although it makes a great textbook, it is so self explanatory that it also would be great for someone trying to learn on their own. It won't teach everything you might eventually want to know about Visual Basic. But, it will get you an excellent start. If you succesfully complete this book, you should move on to other VB books to get more details. The Deitel & Deitel book calld Visual Basic 6: How To Program is a great choice. It is a bit advanced for first time programmers, but if you do this book first, the Deitel book will make a lot more sense and teach you a lot more details. In summary, this is the best and easiest way to learn Visual Basic for beginning programmers.
Rating:
Summary: Learning Visual Basic 6.0
Review: I have used this book to teach hundreds of student how to program in Visual Basic. The book contains real world examples for use every day in the business world. The book does a great job in getting the VB programmer ready for object oriented programming.
Rating:
Summary: Great First VB Book
Review: I just finished my first course in Visual Basic. Diane Zak's book was used as the text. I found the downloadable tutorials, with their immediate feedback, to be the perfect learning tool. The book itself is detailed and well organized, also it is almost completely free of errors. From the basics of Visual Basic through ADO database controls and variable arrays; this book was great. I highly recommend this book to anyone looking to get started with Visual Basic 6.
Rating: 
Summary: Wish I could have picked my own text book.....
Review: I was required to use this book as my text for VB at a local college. The author's thorough knowledge of her subject shows through, but she needs to work on her teaching technique. I always felt like I had to read three pages for what could have been summed up and made less confusing in one page. I also think that the index left much to be desired -- most text books end up being used for reference, and what good is a reference with a lousy index? It was like having a jigsaw puzzle with many nice pieces, but no big picture to guide you in putting it all together. I'm planning on buying a VB book of my own choice this time -- if you have a choice I'd suggest the same.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent College Textbook - Not a Reference Book
Review: I was taught VB from this book. After much additional study I later became certified in VB. I now teach VB and this is the book I use. The purpose of this book is to take students from zero knowledge of VB to a certain level of VB. I have had students that knew VB in the past and wanted a refresher in VB. They enjoyed this book. If you have a poor VB teacher, the students will not like this book. But don't blame this book. When I took VB my teacher was clear that he did not really use VB. It was also obvious. Needless to say most students blamed the book and refused to read the book. I have read this book 3 times (as a student once and as a teacher twice). I do not take the fundamentals of any language for granted. For teachers considering to use this book - you should know there is a CD of 'Teacher Tools' that is a great help (for an additional cost). The teacher's notes on the CD are a great summary of all the principles taught in this book. But there is alot of good stuff on the CD for teachers to use. Even a database of questions for giving tests. You can put the test on a server and allow the students to take the test online. What a great tool. Just remember - this book's main purpose is to teach you and get you through the basics. It is so good - you actually don't need a teacher. But a good teacher and this book will make a great combination. After this book you must continue with VB and be willing to learn about databases - ADO. You must be willing to learn about the advanced topics or you are wasting you time.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent Beginner Book for learning Visual Basic 6
Review: I was very impressed by this book. I took a course in Visual Basic 6 and my teacher used this book for our classroom textbook. I had never programmed before and by the end of my 10 week course, I felt comfortable and secure in my knowledge of VB6. This is a great book for introducing the basic concepts and methods to utilizing VB. If you really want to grasp this subject, start here and use it as a springboard to move on to more complex books.
Rating: 
Summary: Programming With Microsoft Visual Basic 6.0
Review: I'm using the book as a text in a college class, and while the content is good, one can follow it coherently only if one also obsessively tends to watch such things at MTV. The book is exceedingly fragmented, and I've found it very obnoxious to be reading a tutorial and all of a sudden hit two pages of examples before you can get back to the text. I don't enjoy studying that way. If someone else can then, by all means. I am not finding it to be a pleasant experience, however. The layout could have been a lot better.
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