5 comments about Learn to Program Visual Basic Databases (Learn to Program).

1. I don't usually write reviews of books but this book is exceptional. I consider myself a near expert with Microsoft Office VBA but struggled with Visual Basic (the application). The unusual classroom setting of this book made me feel as if I were in the classroom with John Smiley teaching. I was finally being taught by someone who knew how to teach. In chapter 4 I finally ran into a problem I couldn't figure out. John Smiley was gracious enough to post his email address in the front of the book so, at half past midnight I sent him a note discussing my problem. I recieved a response from John at 8:30 that morning. John knew exactly what my problem was and gave me instructions on how to fix it. Once applied, my project worked perfectly. I can't express enough how much I appreciate this kind of customer service. Thanks, John.



2. If ever you need a book to take you step by step into database programming, this is it. Professor Smiley takes his students slowly and very carefully into the subject of Database programming. This book is focused on depth rather than covers a whole bunch of topics and at the end you learn all of none. I particularly like the classroom setting. You really feel an environment of learning and- who knows? You may even make a few new friends. This book is so well explainde, that you do not need to read over and over to make sense of what he is explaining. I must complement him for writing a really great book. If you have not yet already gotten copies of his other titles. I think you should do so, He makes learning fun.



3. John Smiley's book is supposed to be an introductory level book for novice level programmers. At the time it was written, I'm sure it was. However, the book is written around Access 97 and a lot has changed since then. The code simply will not work without patches, work arounds and lots of digging. It takes far more than a novice programmer to figure this one out. It defeats the purpose. If you don't like frustration, find a more recent book..



4. Unlike any other books, this book is presented in a manner where readers would feel as though the he / she is sitting in a class lecture room and listening to Professor Smiley's lecture.
   
   The reader / prospective reader i.e. YOU will be in class with Valerie, Peter, Kate, Rhonda, Kevin, Tom, Melissa, Rachel, Steve, Kathy, Dave, Ward, Blaine, Linda, Mary, Chuck, Lou and Bob. (If your name is not in the roll, perhaps Professor Smiley missed you out! :) )
   
   Readers will be presented with the China Shop Project Database Project. Professor Smiley starts off with simple problems and ascends to more not-so-simple problems.
   
   While reading the exercises, sufficient Windows diagrams are presented and it is as if you were doing a hands-on on Visual Basic Database.
   
   I personally feel that readers should have some knowledge on Visual Basic before attempting this book.



5. I took an online class with John Smiley several years ago using the Beginning Programming with VB 6.0. I then took a live course using VB.net with XML along with others who have been programming for some time, and could almost keep up with them. It would have been better if I'd gotten through all the Smiley books first.
   
   I tried doing this book on my own a couple of years ago, but got bogged down. However I sent him an email with my problems, which he replied to immediately, remembering me from the class. He suggested a work around, so when I took up the book this time I could work through all the exercises. This was a great review of VB and databases, and now I am really understanding connectivity, which I hope to use with websites some day.
   
   Don't use this book as a starter. It continues where the Introductory book leaves off. I noticed that someone complained that it wasn't introductory enough. They just didn't start the right place.
   
   Next step will be to try his Java book.
   
   I would hope that John Smiley would revise these books for .net and newer versions of Access, as they are very worthwhile beginner books!

5 comments about Visual Basic 6 How to Program.

1. This book was on the required list for a class on programming I recently completed (apparently some schools are avoiding using VB.NET in intro classes due to its added complexity). I had always wanted to check out a Deitel book, but the bone-crushing price drove me away more than once. Luckily I was forced into buying it for my class.

   This is a solid book that will teach you everything you need to know to get started writing simple to somewhat complex VB6 code. The book begins with a history of Visual Basic and how it fits into programming in general. Then you're off and diving right into the VB Development Environment and by chapter 3 you've written a simple program. The book gains in complexity from that point on, but at a slow enough pace to take it all in. In fact, sometimes the pace seems stifling.

   If you're an impatient person I would avoid this book. It's over 900 very thick pages long and sometimes getting through a single chapter feels like an entire book in itself (chapter 8 "Strings, Dates, and Times" felt this way for me).

   If you're patient and you learn like a sponge, then be prepared to learn bunches and bunches from this book. By the time you're through you'll even have learned about advanced data structures like linked lists and trees. Getting through this book, despite its academic bulk, feels like a real accomplishment.

   The exercises at the end of each chapter are invaluable for solidifying concepts and for getting your hands wet and sloppy with code. Definitely don't skip these, you'll learn more from working through them then you will reading the text.

   It should be noted that the book is not designed for individual study - it is meant to be a textbook for a classroom setting (they say as much in the preface). I think it's most appropriate in that setting (it also has a textbook price).

   Regardless of it's girth, this book will teach you enough VB6 to program applications of decent complexity. What you won't get is a lesson on API calls or Direct X, but the book is thick enough already!




2. The authors take a subject that's not horribly difficult and make it dautingly difficult in this book. The examples they use are NOT real-world examples that anyone would understand. For example, to explain recursion, their two examples involve factorials and Fibonacci numbers. May I remind them that this is not a book on math and Visual Basic? I had to first learn what Fibonacci numbers were and then try to understand the example. I am unfortunately required to read this book as part of a class and am finding myself reading other books to try to understand what this book is saying. Also, key terms aren't in bold, and the way the book is presented is in reverse order than it should be. The process of VB programming involves first creating the user interface and then the coding behind it. They introduce the coding first and the interface in the middle of the book. I am really struggling to read this and I have a master's degree, work in this general area, and have good reading and vocabulary skills. Why they even thought this book would be applicable to anything for anyone is beyond me.



3. This is not a book with big pictures and lots of redundant information: it's packed with valuable information, extremely well structured and geared towards the needs of the beginner as well as the more advanced student. Each chapter is preceded by an introduction to the respective topic followed by programming projects exemplifying the use of commands, procedures, data types, etc. It is rounded off by concise recap of the material covered. All programming examples are supplied on the accompanying CD ROM which also includes - lo and behold! - a MS VISUAL BASIC 6.0 Working Model Edition as a FREEBIE. So you do not even have to have your own Visual Basic Programming environment in order to do all the exercises and try out the examples given in the book. Algorithms and theoretical background are supplied where necessary and just add to the fun of learning. A wealth of good tips is summarized for each chapter under the headings of "Common Programming Errors", "Good Programming Practices", "Software Engineering Observations" and "Testing and Debugging". The practical hands-on approach to programming of the book is topped off by self-review exercises at the end of each of the 21 chapters for which solutions are supplied and discussed adequately to make them a true learning experience. More challenging exercises are offered to the more ambitious student. This is one of the most instructive and comprehensive books on Visual Basic I have ever had a chance to lay my hand upon. Highly recommendable!



4. This book is written well and logical, it has many items other books lack. This book is a first year comp sci book and that is why it does not have all the answers in the back; read the intro people. Comparing this to other titles I have used, this one fits my needs very well, easy to read, follow, and understand. You must put an effort into the reading to get the best out of it. If you do not work at it, its true, you will think this book is difficult. Deitel & Deital books fill my programming library now, don't waste money on other books.



5. This is the best technical book i have ever read. The reason is it actually has some meat to it. Definatly the best visual basic book out there.
   Matt

No comments about Introduction to Programming Using Microsoft Visual Basic.Net.

5 comments about Data Structures and Algorithms Using Visual Basic.NET.

1. McMillan does for Visual Basic in .NET what other languages like Java, C and C++ have long had. Fundamental data structures like hash tables or hash sets, arrays, linked lists. He shows how to use these in the VB context. They greatly simplify your programming tasks. These constructs are so widely used in any practical programming language.
   
   Without them, you find yourself having to tediously reinvent basic functionality. Adding little value. And with the risk that your implementations might be buggy.
   
   McMillan shows how to use the structures in several algorithms. Having said that, this book will not be of any surprise to someone already familiar with algorithms. It does not go into these to the depth of Knuth's 'Art of Computer Programming', or Sedgewick's texts.



2. Michael McMillan's "Data Structures and Algorithms Using Visual Basic.Net" is an excellent resource for the serious programmer using Visual Basic.Net. With the advent of the .Net technology there have been some major changes to Visual Basic, one of them being the collection classes. Most vb reference books provide a weak introduction to the collections and how to use them; this is the focus of the book and really allows the reader to gain enough confidence to start using them effectively in their own programs.
   
   
   
   I look forward to more books from this author.



3. I have selected this book to be the textbook of an introductory course in data structures and algorithms for my second year programming students. There were three major reasons behind this choice:
   
   1- The book doesn't go into the mathematics found in other books. Of course, mathematics are essential for those who want to create algorithms, but it's not the case for the majority of programmers, at least in the business computing field, who just want to implement them. On the contrary, I think that teaching the mathematics underlying the construction of algorithms makes the learning process unnecessarily hard.
   
   2- On the data structures field, the book takes advantage of structures already implemented in the major development platforms. As the author says it: "students of data structures and algorithms can now see how to use a data structure before learning how to implement it" (Preface, p. vii). From an educational standpoint, this is a far better approach than starting to discuss a concept abstractly.
   
   3- The examples are in VB .NET, which I consider a good starting programming language. For those who rather prefer another language, the author has recently published the same book for C#: "Data Structures and Algorithms Using C#".
   
   In a word, I consider this book an excellent practical approach to learn common data structures and algorithms without going into the complexity of mathematics.



4. For some of us learning programming has been less of a structured approach and more of a journey, picking up what we could as we went along. This book is a significant aid in that it takes us back to the basics of how to write problem solving code and at the same time giving us an extended toolbox to apply to how we perform it. It has been a real help to me by reinforcing things to me that I thought I understood, and teaching me new ways to do things that I had no idea on how to approach.
   Al Edlund



5. This is a decent read, teaches you some important topics like collections, strings, etc. But if you buy this book, supplement your reading with a complete VB book.

No comments about From VBA to VSTO: Is Excel's New Engine Right for You?.

3 comments about Professional VB 2005 (Programmer to Programmer).

1. This publication has not been subject to technical editing, or if it has, the staff performing the edit were definitely unqualified. The book contains literally dozens of errors, most of which should have been caught before publication. In many cases the text refers to a figure the contents of which bear no relation to the text. As an experienced VB.NET developer I was able to resolve most of the amomalies but anyone attempting to use this book as a migration aid from VB6 to VB.NET would really struggle. When I emailed the publisher (WROX) they displayed a distinct lack of interest, suggesting I compile a list of errors and send it to them and they would, if they agreed, add them to the errata on their website.



2. This book could probably be used by the beginning VB programmer if they are at least familar with the basic concepts of programming. But it is really intended for those who have used VB before. This book concentrates on the changes in VB 2005 with special regard for its integration as part of the .NET environment. The book uses Visual Studio 2005, the integrated development environment that makes the writing of VB programs much easier.
   
   The big changes in VB 2005 and the .NET environment is that most tasks take far less code to implement. This combined with the leap to VB becoming an object-oriented language has extended its ability to be used to code more extensive enterprise applications.
   
   Shipping as part of Visual Studio 2005 Microsoft includes ASP.NET which is also covered here as part of the use of VB in programming for web sites. Other web oriented subjects included here include an introduction to XML which is used with the web to facilitate machine to machine communications. This is changing the very concept of the web where the data the site displays to a user may come from other machines literally anywhere in the world.
   
   At almost 1200 pages, there's a lot of material here. It's well written, and covers just about everything you'd want to know about VB. I found a few small errors, but no real problems.



3. I assumed I would like this book a lot, as I've enjoyed books and articles by many of the authors. Perhaps part of the problem is too many authors - and no primary editor (or one with too many projects.)
   
   Some of the sections are strong, but many key concepts are not mentioned at all. I'll focus on data access as an example.
   
   I realize any book on VB quickly becomes huge, and this one comes with 1000+ pages. But that's 1,066 pages with no mention of TableAdapters, a key new data access object in .NET 2.0. Perhaps the author of the section believes that use of a DataAdapter is always a better choice; if so, TableAdapter weaknesses should be described so that readers are aware of them. Microsoft believes the object is so fundamental that it is the first topic described on MSDN - after "Getting Started with Data Access" and before "Connecting to Data in Visual Studio." I don't understand why this new object, which is used to fill datasets and datatables, is not mentioned in a section titled "ADO.NET 2.0 enhancements to the DataSet and DataTable".
   
   All aspects of data access, a fundamental part of almost any application, are covered in 48 pages. Twenty of those pages comprise a section "Building a Data Access Component" that includes many errors. None of the errors reported to the publisher two months ago are yet included in the errata.
   
   In a related area, I could find no mention of the new BindingSource class or BindingSource component, key new features to support Windows Forms data binding.
   
   This may have been one of the first books released on VB 2005, but whatever your level of experience, it's certainly not the best.

5 comments about Writing Word Macros.

1. As someone who has been making a living writing Office macros for the past three years, I'd say this is the book I refer to most often. I taught myself Word VBA with this one book, after having briefly studied Excel VBA with SAMS Excel Programming (Podlin/Webb).

   Even now that I'm working in XP, the book is as useful as ever as a quick reference for solutions to common tasks, for descriptions of Word objects, and answers when "Help" is no help at all.

   It's certainly possible to learn Word VBA from zero with this book, but if you prefer a structured 'teach yourself' course with excercises, then you'd better get another book to go with this one. A good start might be Sams Teach Yourself Microsoft Word 2000 Automation in 24 Hours.




2. This is probably the best book one can buy for learning VBA and Word. That said, one should also note that it is a terrible book. The trouble is that there is no other book available that covers this subject.
   
   I refer to this book all the time I am trying to program VBA, but most of the time the book is no more help than what I can get by using Microsoft help. I have wasted hundreds of hours (no exaggeration) trying to find out information that should be in this book but is not there. He makes a plug for you to send him money for his "enhanced object model browser" because the one in Word "gives only a flat one-dimensional view of the object model" whereas his is "two-dimensional". He nowhere explains what he means by those terms, and the illustrations he gives do not help one either.
   
   Before buying this book you should first be a professional programmer who uses VBA already. Mr. Roman assumes you know many things that he will not explain. That might be OK if he would give more programming examples so that one could try to extract from the examples the steps that his book does not explain. On a more positive note, Mr. Roman likes to explain things that most persons who buy this book already know: the different kinds of variables, the importance of declaring variables before using them, and so forth.
   
   It would have been better if in the draft stage he had had some neophyte try to work with what he had written so that he would know where he contradicts himself and where he leaves out material one has to know to make things work. A better solution would be for him to read John Walkenbach's "Excel ... Power Programming with VBA" and then try to imitate that for Word.
   
   One wishes that someone else could write a book on VBA for Word. I hope Mr. Roman's students at CSU Fullerton have the opportunity to ask him questions to get him on the right track when he is unclear. Unfortunately his readers do not have that ability.



3. I have noticed that certain number of commentators did not give this book high mark. I wonder why?
   
   First of all let me introduce myself. I have been electronic engineer, system engineer and a programmer for the last 20 years. I follow this MS Word thing from about its first versions up to now. You do not want to hear how many languages I have or I have had in my pocket. My first steps in Visual Basic for Applications has been so old that I do not remember when exactly I have been involved in the matter. Most of my knowledge of VBA and with lots of other fields started with no books at all.
   
   The author Mr. Roman says very clearly that Word macros scheme is so large that his intention is not to cover all, or even most of these objects, but to acquaint the audience with the major portions of it in order to EASE LEARNING. I also would like to point out that the editor's note on Amazon also brilliantly says: "Not intended to be an encyclopedia of Word programming". And finally who would expect that some topic with more than 3,000 properties and methods could be just put in a book with less then 400 pages altogether?
   
   From these reasons I consider the book is properly advertised and the marks given to the book should only judge about what the book promise and what it delivers. And it delivers a lot.
   
   What I personally needed was a book on Word objects and here it is. Longer than decade I needed a book on Word macros, and this author seems to be the only one who dares to go for adventure of giving an insight into this topic. I think he did the most he could; otherwise he would need 5 years more to write the encyclopedia, and we should not like that, should we?
   
   For this discussion it is important that generally the Microsoft company has made a very hard life to programmers, with version inconsistency, with peculiar solutions, abandoning standardizations and trying to enforce just private rules, with monopoly and with a lot of other problems that I do not want to enumerate in this letter. In spite of that, this author did the best job of bringing the controversial Word macros topic much closer to the broad public that he deserves applause. For that I give him 4 stars.



4. Many of the reviews here are very unfair to this book.
   
   Overall, this is an excellent book. Steven Roman covers exactly what you need to know about Word programming. As the author states in his intro, this book does not do any handholding and it's not padded with extraneous junk. It gives you just the facts and enough information to get you started. This book is not for beginners - it's directed at someone who has a reasonable competency in programming. Not an advanced progarmmer; just a basic knowledge of VB and an idea of how to work with Objects.
   
   Note he often does not give big sections of code which you can just slightly modify to get it to do what you want. He gives short illustrations that any programmer would know how to integrate into existing code.
   
   The first 9 chapters are virtually the same as the first 9 chapters of another one of his books, Writing Excel Macros with VBA. This is provided to get non-programmers up to speed before the real meat of the book, which starts on page 128.



5. This book is weird. Who is it written for? At the back of the book there is a little appendix telling you all about Fortran, C++, and other things which have nothing to do with the book's topic.
   
   The title is "writing word macros" but you can find much better information about that on the internet than in this book.
   
   For some bizarre reason the author prints out pages upon pages of lists of all the properties and methods of objects - just trying to fill out space?
   
   The oddest thing about the book is that the cover keeps curling up. Also the printing quality in the copy I got is diabolical - it looks like it was printed on a cheap laser printer with a shortage of toner.
   
   Save your money.

5 comments about Ready-to-Run Visual Basic(r) Algorithms, 2nd Edition.

1. Stacks, queues, linked lists, sparse arrays, balanced trees, numerous sorting algorithms, and much more. If you are now an intermediate level VB programmer, and then you read and understand this book from cover to cover, you will have raised your level of expertise by at least one level. Great stuff in this book - highly recommended.



2. Very good reference: fine examples, good clean code. Some bugs in the combinatorial optimization section (branch and bound, etc.) need to be cleaned up (the best isn't always picked). Still, it's a very useful book.



3. Should have paid more attention in math class. I will bow to others who have written positive reviews, but I just got confused. Like many good computer books though, I will give it another try when my brain frees up some memory.



4. There aren't many good Advanced VB textbooks out there and most don't bother to teach this stuff, but most Professors or Instructors expect their students to understand sorting algorithms, queues, hashes, binary trees, linked lists, spanning trees, etc. This book was very helpful towards that end. The sample programs are great! Stephens spends more time than usual in explaining the general fundamentals of algorithms and their benefits. He really speaks to the reader. This is not an Advanced VB textbook or reference book. It does a very good job of covering Visual Basic Algorithms.



5. This book has thirteen chapters. It covers Lists, Stacks & Queues, Arrays, Recursion, Trees, Balanced Trees, Decision Trees, Sorting, Searching, Hashing, Network Algorithms and Object-Oriented Techniques. The one I'm most interested in is Chapter 8 (Decision Trees), the book has a small Tic-Tac-Toe game and source code. The game has 9 levels of "Artificial Intelligence". I thought I'd find some source code or explanation on chess game when I bought this book. This is the only reason that disappoints me slightly, other than that, it's a great book.

3 comments about Visual Basic .NET Database Programming for Dummies.

1. I am really please with this book :
   In this book you will find clear, efficient examples explained step by step.(you can download the examples from the WEB).
   You will have to read only what is necessary to do your job.
   You don't loose time and you don't have to read from the beginning of the book to understand. You can read directly only the chapter you need.

   You don't have to read useless comment or sentence which bring you no practical skill. This book explain really only what you need .
   And you can adapte the example of the book to your need.
   This book is more clear and efficient than "VB.NET" Professional of the Wrox Team.

   In conclusion, this book is made in a way that you can understand fast and well. This is good and practical book.

   Emmanuel Evrard




2. I'm a beginner and already have hit errors on page 47:
   Start>Programs>MS SQL server>Configure SQL XML support in IIS

   My computer yield the following:
   Start>Programs>MS SQL server>
   >Books online
   >Client network utility
   >Enterprise manager
   >Import and export data
   >Profiler
   >Query analyzer
   >Readme.txt
   >Server netowrk utility
   >Service manager
   >Uninstall SQL server 7.0

   There is no mention of Configure XML support in IIS!

   I'm tired of buying books with sloppy technical editing. Oh, to read just one book on VB .net that didn't have an error in the first 50 pages.




3. This is a total waste of paper. Save the forrest, do not print books like that!
   Most of the stuff from this book can be easily found on the net. And also the book does not cover most of the topics. There is not a single part of the book that describes well any of the .NET concepts

5 comments about The Ultimate VB .NET and ASP.NET Code Book.

1. The content is ok, however the writing style of Karl Moore is really bad. He tries to be funny whole the time. The first few pages I thought it would be ok, however he continues until the very last page of the book.
   
   Example: "I'm really pleased you're sticking with the tutorials. You're obviously one of the few people that truly arent't offended by my smell" and " Well, hurrah and hujjah on coming this far" and "So a round of applause and well done once again! ". You get this type of information every second sentence. It really distracts you from the content and it gets really annoying. Otherwise, it would be a good book (with 100 pages less).



2. Being a moderate VB.NET developer I needed a book like this. One that cuts through the chase and show cool tips! I really enjoy the writing style of Mr. Moore. Serious yet comfortable to make you smile and think "I know exactly what you're talking about." But this book isn't really for the beginner. It's for the programmer that's been playing with Windows Form and Web Form development for a while and just need that extra edge. I've built custom controls from some of the reference in this book as well. Great book, would love to see another one.



3. I found this book to be full of useful and somewhat obscure information that the author had obviously collected by spending time working with VB.NET. Definitely not an ideal first programming or .NET book, but once you understand the rudiments of VB.NET and the CLR this book can save a lot of time by exposing common pitfalls and providing a ton of code snippets that can be directly integrated into projects. A great timesaver and a large collection of tips and tricks - I'd highly recommend it.



4. I love this book. When I am not looking for an immediate solution to my .Net issues, I am skimming it to pick up some new techniques. Excellent code and explanations. Great for vb.net and asp.net beginners and seasoned programmers who want to save themselves time.



5. I did not get to use this book due to the fact that it was written for VB .NET 2003.
   
   Since the changes between 2003 and 2005 were so dramatic, my search for a good book continues.
   
   I have rated this 5 stars because I didn't use it.