No comments about Build Your Own ASP.NET 3.5 Website Using C# & VB.

5 comments about Learn to Program with Visual Basic 6.

1. Let me begin by saying that I'm the author, so let's get that out of the way.

   I'm posting here to point out that the book has a tremendous amount of support materials that have never been advertised. Each of my books has a support page containing a current list of errata, downloadable files (completed exercises from the book), extra links to extra materials I have written and my email address in the event you have problems. I also run a series of online classes so that if you would like to learn with me in a more structured setting, you can do that also. You can access those materials via this link

   http://www.johnsmiley.com/books.htm

   I should also say that this book isn't for everyone---and you can read through some of the other reviews posted here to see why and why not.

   I wrote this book for beginner level programmers, and the book is written in a unique style.

   You (and I) can thank the now defunct Wrox Publishing house for the style of the book that some people absolutely love and others (primarily hotshot programmers with lots of experience) hate. The book is written as if you are participating in an actual classroom---many people, particularly those learning on their own or in an Independent study setting find comforting.

   My thanks to the many people who have written to me to tell me how much they've enjoyed my books and how they have helped them achieve their goals of learning to program.

   John Smiley




2. I'm a hobbyist, not an IT professional, and have been programming in BASIC since I bought my first PC in the 70's. When I decided to tackle Visual Basic to write programs for Windows, I purchased five "how-to" books on the subject. Unfortunately for me, John Smiley's book was the last one I bought. If I had ordered "Learn to Program" first, I could have saved more than $100. This is a clear, concise, and sure-fire way for the beginner or experienced BASIC programmer to transition to the powerful yet simple language of Visual Basic. John Smiley's book easily allows the reader to understand the concepts of event driven programming and the differences from procedural driven programming. Consider it a "must have" for the novice with little or no programming experience.



3. If you are a busy person, you work a lot with programmers and you need a general understanding of programming, this is not the book for you.
   If you have time on your hands, and you want to learn VB, this could be the book for you.
   After I bought this book I realised I was fooled by the title. It should be called 'Programming in Visual Basic for beginners'. The point of this book is to teach you to program in VB6, not to teach you the basics of programming using VB as an example language. While I can understand that the verbose classroom approach may appeal to some, I found it patronising and time wasting. I eventually bought 'Sams Teach Yourself Beginning Programming in 24 Hours' by Greg Perry which gives a concise summary of programming basics, an overview of the most common languages, and exercises to drive home the lessons. Exactly what I was after.



4. After programming in various languages, such as C and Perl, and using the Win32 API to write Windows applications, my company bought the rights to a product built on VB and ActiveX. The Visual Basic language, which in my mind was relegated to "script kiddies" and fly-by-night vendors, had found its way into our hallowed halls.
   
   I found this book enlightening and very informative. John's treatment of the SDLC was very brief, yet helpful. Wheras most techical manuals border on mundane, this book was anything but boring. The "classroom" setting was a great medium to keep my attention page after page. It catered to the beginner in me, which was a relief.
   
   Some books will just gloss over functional parts of development tools. Not only does this book come with a working version of Visual Basic 6.0, John goes to great lengths to walk through the menu system, debugging functions, and certain control parameters.
   
   Each section in each chapter contains a discussion (this is the "classroom" converation part) about the exercises. I found that each exercise works as written in the book. At the end of each chapter is a Summary and a Quiz. The Quiz answers can be found at the back of the book, however, I found that some of the Quiz answers were wrong, but was glad I had enough knowledge from John's writing to recognize a wrong answer.
   
   If you have a desire to learn how to program, have some knowledge of windows operating system, and enjoy good stories, then this book is for you. Keep in mind that John only covers the tip of the iceberg. You will truly need another book to actually do anything more than create simple forms and process the "Click" event (read the book to see what I mean).



5. I have worked through the first 7 chapters of "Learn to Program with Visual Basic 6" written by John Smiley and published by Active Path with the latest reprint September 2001. I will finish the remaining 8 chapters in a few days.
   
   This is a good book to work through the uses of the basic VB6 controls.
   
   But the book is nearly useless for providing a quick way to understand VB6 code syntax. The VB6 program provided with the book has the HELP disabled. So, one is always "googling" to get syntax and examples. Plus, the program will not produce executable runtime VB applications.
   
   The cover states about the software "...including a fully working version of Microsoft Visual Basic..." I consider runtime and HELP to be an integral part of a *fully* working version.
   
   As to the title of this review, one should be be careful with which Smiley "Learn to Program..." book one is buying.
   
   But, I would buy again. Just wanted to let you know what you were getting.

5 comments about Definitive Guide to Excel VBA, Second Edition.

1. This is a great book for the intermediate to advanced Excel VBA user. It covers many fine details missed by other Excel VBA texts. This does NOT make this text better than others that focus on basic skills for VBA Application programming. Beginners may get lost in the depth of the details but experienced users will be very happy with the depth of knowledge that makes the difference between a good application and a great application. Buy this book after you master the fundamentals. Highly recommended.



2. This is an excellent guide to Excel VBA. I have programmed in VB for 12+ years, but have barely dabbled in VBA. I needed to develop some tools for Excel using VBA. I asked expert friends on Experts-Exchange (www.experts-exchange.com) and Open IT (pub21.ezboard.com/bopenitforum) and they gave me three highly recommended books. I look on Amazon and came up with about five to consider, include those three previously recommended. I looked at copies of those and others and chose this book as the one most likely to fit my needs. So far, I am not disappointed.



3. If you only plan to buy one book on Excel VBA (and trust me, one may be enough for most people!), then this is it. Mr. Kofler gives a comprehensive treatment of the subject matter that is structured in a logical and progressive manner. New, intermediate, and even advanced programmers are sure to find nuggets of valuable information in these 900+ pages.
   
   Several chapters are directly related to database applications within Excel which is a strong plus for me. I haven't found another book that covers Excel databases so it was a welcome addition.



4. I like to break programming into two different categories: scripting and application development.
   
   These categories have little to do with the programming language, and more to do with the intent and style. "Scripts" generally aren't very robust: they have minimal error handling, they don't cleanly fail when unexpected data is encountered, etc. "Applications" are supposed to be more robust.
   
   All of the VBA programs (and programming books) I've seen are mostly focused on getting the programmer from Point A to Point B without regard to any problems that may be created along the way.
   
   This book goes into great detail about how to automate Excel, but it does not teach you how to make an Excel "Application," nor does it provide the necessary deep details about how VBA behaves for a programmer to be able to figure it out without turning to other references, and mostly experimentation.
   
   In short, this book teaches you how to effectively create reams of unmaintainable spaghetti code.



5. This book was originally published in Germany. Kudos to Apress for picking it up and translating it. The translation is the reason many have called this book cryptic. But make no mistake, this is a fantastic book that covers many things that others do not. This is a great addition to any Excel library.

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.

5 comments about C# & VB.NET Conversion Pocket Reference.

1. I picked up this book on a fling... but I am amazed at how useful I've found it. Most book authors today are gauged (by the publishing houses) according to the number of pages they turn in. This book on the other hand tries to squeeze a lot of good solid information into a small space without beating the topic to death.

   It goes over some of the core differences of VB.NET and C# making not just a valuable reference in conversion between the two, but amazing for learning both languages if you're coming from a high level language (I'm a very strong VB programmer). Within a few minutes I learned how to build classes in both C# and VB.NET from this book. About 10 minutes later I had basic Overloading and Inheritance down. Granted, this book won't teach you what Inheritance is, but if you already know it your only problem is to learn the syntax and this book gives you the syntax quickly.

   Another cool thing about this book is that it quickly also shows you what's WRONG with the languages at the IL level and will give you a quick bit of info about things that can cause problems (i.e., case sensitivity in C# which allows you to write functions that would result in ambiguous interpretation in VB.NET)

   Remember: this book won't tell you what object oriented design is and won't tell you how to build an n-tier app in .Net, but it will teach you how to write a class in C# and VB.NET in about 1 minute :-) Its just as helpful to learn the basics, such as loops, indexing, calling conventions, etc...

   If you are already good in high level languages and have gotten dropped head first into .NET, get this book and keep it nearby.




2. This book has been a lot of help for me. I came from an all C# programming background and took a job as a VB.NET programmer. With what I already knew, and this book as a reference I was programming VB.NET almost as well as I had programmed C# the very first day.

   This book is a very handy tool for anyone to have especially for the price. My one compliant is that there is no index but you can quickly get use to thumbing though to find what you need in a hurry.




3. This is a great pocket reference for those of us who go back and forth between C# and VB.NET. It is also good for those who do not have to do that, but want to know the differences.
   
   Granted, much of the .NET platform allows almost line-for-line conversion between languages, but there are many syntax differences. This book covers those for these two languages, as well as a special section of significant differences between the languages (in addition to the item-by-item coverage).
   
   This is a handy little book, but because it is little, it sometimes slides to the back of the bookshelf (between two larger books). Still, well worth the price and peace of mind.



4. There are at least two advantages to knowing both languages.
   - Understanding sample code and examples.
   - Flexibility on multi-language projects.
   
   I'm from a C++ background in the bad old days before .NET, but now I'm equally comfortable in either C# or VB.NET, largely due to this book.
   
   Exclusive of conversion between the two langauges, it's also the best quick reference I have for either. Many times I've continued to search for my copy rather than turn to another source. Now I also subscribe to it on Safari, and when my hardcopy falls apart I'll probably buy another one.
   
   It would be nice if it had an index, but I'm still giving it five stars since as far as I know there is no adequate substitute.



5. This is a great book to start programming in C#. I have been programming in VB.NET for over three years and this book has been very helpful while making the transition from VB to C# and every time I am going from one language to the other. It is nicely organized and you can quickly find the information and exmaples you need to start working.I definitely recommend this book. I got it (...)at my local bookstore and it is worth alot more than that.

5 comments about Windows Developer Power Tools: Turbocharge Windows development with more than 170 free and open source tools (Power Tools).

1. This book is an excellent source of useful tools and mini-howto guides. I especially like the layout where each tool is described along with links to the code, a summary of its abilities and a mini-howto on how to get started with the tool. The book gives a nice cross section of tools for all occasions, broken up by category. If you are new to development or are needing a tool to help you develop code then this book will probably point you in the right direction.
   
   The reason for 4 stars rather than 5 is more because of the topic rather than the book itself or the authors. By its very definition some of the tools were outdated by the time of the book's release. It is a limitation of the publishing process. The authors simply have no way of knowing what tools will be available at the time of the books release. Therefore readers should not assume that each tool is the best in its category. Nor should readers assume that the howto guides are completely accurate for the current version. This book could have really used a CD containing each of the tools at the time of the writing so readers could get a feel for the tool without: a) having to download the tool separately, and b) try to match the current version of the tool to the version discussed in the book. Even better would have been a VPC image that users could run without having to install all the tools on their own system.
   
   I'm hoping the authors put out a new edition later and, perhaps, include a CD of the tools. Until then this is one of the best books available for getting information on some really useful developer tools.



2. I'm big into using the right tools for the right jobs. One can find a gazillion of tools out there on the internet, so it's hard to decide which ones are actually worth checking out. This book remedies that by giving you a consolidated list of tools that everybody developer should at least have a look at.
   
   I also blogged about this book at:
   http://claudiolassala.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!E2A4B22308B39CD2!356.entry



3. [...]
   
   Until reading this book, I did not realize how much productivity I stood to gain.
   
   When I first agreed to review this book I didn't know what I was really getting into. I expected a brief catalog of fairly standard, well-known tools which would only come as a surprise to fresh graduate. I expected I getting a small pocket-sized book which I could devour in one train ride. I could not have been more wrong.
   
   The book covers over 170 Open Source tools across a wide variety of development domains from Windows Forms and Web Development, to working with Databases and XML data. Each tool will in some way enhance your productivity in some way, allowing you to do the things your really enjoy about writing software on the Microsoft Windows platform. The productivity gains vary from being able to generate the tedious 80% of your project to those 5 second boosts which all add up and prevent RSI.
   
   Each of the 23 chapters is targeted at a particular issue or development task and opens with one or two pages describing this task. These are so well written that I think the opening of Chapter 9 [Analyzing Your Code], which gives a quick explanation of code metrics, is my favorite section of the whole book. This means that the book is not just an encyclopedic reference of tools, but also of modern development techniques.
   
   After the introduction a very brief description of each tool follows. These are great memory refreshers once you have read the book and are repeated on the companion web-site. Each tool is then given its own section and the chapter closes with a bibliography for people interested in finding out more.
   
   This structure of "Introduction, Overview data, Full text, Where to get more information" is repeated for each tool. The overview data includes such information as:
   
   The version covered
   The home page
   The license type
   Which versions of the .NET Framework are supported
   A collection of related tools for cross-referencing purposes
   
   The full text of each tool explains where to get the tool, how to install it and how to get started using it allowing you to jump straight in and leverage the tool. This section is often littered with useful screenshots which give you a glimpse at the experience you will find when using the tool. The text for each tool closes with instructions for getting support on the tool and often a brief passage from the tools creator explaining the thinking behind creating the tool.
   
   If that weren't enough, the book also has a companion website at www.windevpowertools.com where all of the tools are listed and tagged, each with a download link enabling you to download one straight from the site. You can even create your own "toolbox" and add tools from the site to it, allowing you to quickly and easily provision new machines from the web site itself.
   
   All in all I have thoroughly enjoyed reading this book. I would have liked to have seen more information about the selection process for the tools and readers would do well to remember that a tools inclusion (or lack of inclusion) in the text is not necessarily an indicator of its maturity or usefulness. Be sure that you have a lot of time if you buy this book as you are likely to download, install, and play with many of the tools. If you do then using a virtual machine is highly recommended. None of the tools did anything harmful to my computer, but having 170 tools running at once just isn't advised!



4. Windows Developer Power Tools: Turbocharge Windows development with more than 140 free and open source tools (Power Tools)
   
   Overview
   
   Open-source and free developer/performance tools can be found in abundance on the internet today but one of the few issues that generally comes up after you've gotten hold of one is "how does this work?".
   
   On occasion you'll start to use a tool or add-in only to find out later on that there's a much better way to utilise the power you suddenly have at your hands - but by then, you've spent hours already "mis-using" the tool.
   
   This book arms you with information, tips and tricks, how-tos and descriptions on a host of known, and possibly unknown, tools that will seriously help you speed up your development - so why not be the hero of the office and start developing smartly!
   
   Over the last couple of years i've been in and out of windows and web development and felt that i was comfortable in both arenas. But after reading this book I knew that I could have been a much more efficient developer if only I'd known about the tools it explores.
   
   The book is divided into suitable chapters, making it very easy to use the book for fast reference if you suddenly remember that you once read (somewhere?) about a tool doing exactly what you're trying to achieve in the old fashioned way - doing it yourself from scratch.
   
   Each chapter (or tool/tip/add-in) is presented in an easily to understand english, with a logical order that makes reading this book a pleasure. Some books comes across with technical jargon without explanations for the varied levels of developers out there, but this book can easily be enjoyed by both the experienced developer and the starting rising star.
   
   Some of my most favorite tools are included in this book, such as Anthem.Net, which encapsulates web forms and extends AJAX capability without having to write a single line of JavaScript.
   
   Other tools which was new to me, included CopySourceAsHTML, and the experience with which i've had with posting code over the years, or including snippets in documentation, has just been greatly improved.
   
   Conclusion
   
   What i found most pleasing about this book, is the consistency in which it presents each topic for you. The authors has gone to great length to make it a flawless experience in reading this book and even though many has contributed to the content, the layout is flawlessly simple.
   
   A very easy read and a bookshelf essential! Five stars...



5. 'Windows Developer Power Tools: Turbocharge Windows development with more than 170 free and open source tools' is one of the most cost-efficient books I have ever read in my life. As the title says, this book is jam-packed with some of the most helpful and needy tools that you can ever find for Windows all put into one huge TOME of a book (1250+ pages).
   
   Spread over 23 chapters, content is broken up into topics like Windows Form, creating documentation, testing, bug tracking, XML, etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. There is so much here is would take quite a while to read but that's not a bad thing in this case. If you are an administrator, developer, or just anyone that wants to learn to use Windows more efficiently, you NEED to pick this book up today.
   
   Love it Love it Love it Love it Love it!!!!!
   
   ***** HIGHEST POSSIBLE RECOMMENDATION

5 comments about ADO : ActiveX Data Objects.

1. I bought this book for one chapter - data shaping, and it turned out to be the only place that I found that was able to explain it in a way that I could understand. The author has a knack for thoroughly explaining the material. I also found the appendix on SQL helpful.



2. You can't get a more complete ADO book.. ever gritty detail is in this book.. It's almost too much information. :- ) if you code ADO. This is a good book to have.

   Cheers

   Wayne lambright




3. This is a well written book for existing programmers who want to learn ADO. While the examples are in Visual Basic, the core concepts of ADO are very detailed and anyone with an understanding of a similar language, such as ASP or C++ should have no trouble applying the examples to the other language. It will not help you if you don't already know how to program.

   It also serves as a good reference book.




4. this is a very good book, comparing to MSDN ADO note on the web, which covers only access to .mdb database, this book covers a variety of methods and databases. Thank for the great contribution.



5. I have also read Programming ADO from David Sceppa and I prefer this one because it contains a lot examples with source code. My only complain is that there is only a small C++ program and the rest are all in Visual Basic. However, this is not a big issue as it is very easy to port the samples in C++.

3 comments about Upgrading Microsoft Visual Basic 6.0 to Microsoft Visual Basic .NET w/accompanying CD-ROM.

1. With so much misinformation and speculation about migrating apps to vb.net, I decided to go straight to the horse's mouth for the word.
   This book does the job. It demystifies the migration story. It shows how to migrate apps to vb.net, and has complete reference material about potential problems and how to fix them. It contained less hype and more fact than I have come to expect from Microsoft. I particularly liked the sections that list the differences between vb6 and vb.net. This is exactly the information that I was looking for and the only place that I have been able to find it. Other notable chapters cover COM Interop, migrating COM+ services and troubleshooting migration problems.
   With the help of this book, I have migrated several of my applications to vb.net, a much easier job than a lot of the reports and newsgroups have made it sound.

   Vb.net is NOT a whole new language for us developers to learn, I believe it adds a new dimension to the same language ensuring that we as Vb developers will still have a job in 10 years when java users are well and truly obsolete! I recommend this book to everybody moving apps from vb6 to vb.net.

   Bring on vb.net Microsoft, I'm ready!




2. When I first got this book, I did not think I would like it very much. After all, how much can one write on upgrading from Visual Basic to Visual Basic .NET?

   While I believe most people will rewrite rather than upgrade, having experienced the wizard's decisions, this book has a lot of good advice to both make this an easier task and to make the right decisions in your current code if you have ever thought of upgrading.

   While you expect this book to have a good deal on Interop, the gem here is the great explanation of remoting. While web services are the talk of the town, the ability to create server to server communication without creating another layer, is very important. For me, this section, alone, was worth the price of the ride.

   For most, the upgrade information will be the most important, which should come as no suprise. If you are currently writing Visual Basic 6, you can learn a lot about setting up your own code to make sure it does not become legacy code when you move to .NET. Even more important, however, is the fact that following these suggestions will help you create better apps, as the suggestions for your current code are good suggestions whether the code will be upgraded or not.

   One more nice gem before I sign off. The section on creating global components in .NET is wonderful. While most of your .NET apps are designed to sit in their own directories, knowing how to create shared components is very important for Enterprise development. If you are developing in .NET currently, this section details how to set up your own global components; this is an area where the documentation is a bit slim, so it makes a nice selling point for current .NET developers.




3. Upgrading to .net is a must have for any developer or company that is planning to use .net.
   I highly recommend this book to any developers or project managers who need to rapidly understand what's involved in upgrading to .net from VB. By purchasing this booking I upgraded a VB 5/6 to VB.Net and I'm about to deliver my first .net project on time and within budget.

   As with all VB releases I was both excited and daunted by the release of .net.
   Being a developer who has worked from basic to VB 6.0 I was suspicious of the learning curve involved and the bombardment of books about .net. In early February my manager informed me that a client of ours was insisting on moving their VB 6 app to use the .Net framework. Instantly before my eyes I saw late nights and busy weekends whilst adapting my VB knowledge to expand into the .Net framework.
   Like many developers before me, I smiled with confidence and told my project manager this upgrade could be done. As soon as his back was turned I searched the Internet and instantly got presented myriad of books about .Net.

   Scanning the list I saw a familiar name "Ed Robertson", I remember this guy from a developer day's conference. He was concise and accurate whilst presentation technical and conceptual information on how to upgrade from VB to .Net

   Needless to say I purchased the book and in 10 days it arrived. By resisting the temptation to start programming and actually reading the book first. I was very quickly able to upgrade one of the smaller Apps involved in system and then with planning
   I tackled with confidence the main application

   This book will teach you how to upgrade and more importantly what applications can be upgraded well providing you with an in depth view into the .net framework

   My recommendation is that anyone who going to use .Net should purchase this book.
   It will save you hours of programming and frustration as the authors drawing on there own wealth of .net experience cleverly guide you through the stormy waters of system upgrades.

5 comments about Advanced Visual Basic 6: Power Techniques for Everyday Programs (DevelopMentor Series).

1. I simply can't accept people give below 5 stars for this book - have they read it correctly / reviewed the same book???

   It's BY FAR the best I've seen for the advanced user. Everything that you always wanted to do in VB - and it's here! It's an ABSOLUTE must for any serious programmer.

   This book is on the same level of every VB programmers bible - Dan Appleman's Guide to the Win32 API - if that gives you an idea of how good it is.

   I can't believe I haven't heard about this book before.




2. This book even surpasses the possibilities of McKinley's "Hardcore Visual Basic". You almost gain the power of C/C++ type Windows and COM programming.
   This book is not easy to read. You do need a C level expertise on Windows' and COM's inner working. Though no ATL or MFC is required.
   I did learn a lot of the apparently strange behavior of VB. It is now clearer to me. But should you really apply those grandiose tricks. (For proper clean up purposes you should not hit the stop button anymore.) The answer is the same as for optimization. Don't do it! But if I am really in need? Don't do it! ... After at least ten iterations including solid peer review you might try it. The author makes it pretty easy. (...)
   Is this book still relevant after the advent of VS.Net? I think so yes. It is an intellectual joy to read this book. (Why couldn't I read it 1996?) We and many other institutions still write a lot of code in VB 6. Anyhow this probably was my last book on VB 6.



3. Yes, I didn't read very carefully -- this is just the book, no CD. No idea of the source of this stupidity. Nor do a see a lower price.



4. This book is useless without the CDROM, which is not included!



5. En la categoria avanzado de visual basic 6, es un excelente libro, tiene todos esos tips que cuesta conseguir, manejo de performance a bajo nivel, trucos de desarrollo, etc... Por donde lo mires es un excelente libro.

No comments about C++ Basics.