No comments about ALS Microsoft Visual Basic .NET Programming Essentials Package (Microsoft Official Academic Course Series).

No comments about Show Me: Wordperfect 6 : A Visual Guide to the Basics (Show me).

3 comments about Master Visual Basic 4/Book and Cd-Rom.

1. The book was very good. Easy to follow and the purpose for entering the code was explaned very well. The only problem I had was with the Tegosoft OCX controls. I tried and tried to get them to work but no luck. So I had to purchased the kit from Tegosoft ($35 to download). Everything worked well after that



2. It has some good samples, but I could found more information on one WWW page. Specially, what I do not like is that half of book is dedicated to one control (Tegosoft). And it is not something special.



3. Visual basic 4 is a good choice for beginners into the windows programming stuff, Gurewich lead you step by step through the chapters and it's very easy and fun to learn with this book. You can read a chapter for day and you'll be ready in a month.

No comments about Introduction to Computer Programming Visual BASIC 6-Textbook Only.

5 comments about Visual Basic Programming With the Windows Api.

1. Buying this book lead me to find the win32api.txt, which I now use in place of the book (its much better).



2. This book explains the WINAPI and how to attach VB programs to it. I was having a lot of trouble with this concept until I got the book.

   Murray and Pappas showed me, by example after example, how to write the kind of code I bought the book for.




3. I got this book so I could learn how to get to Windows functions. It divided the Windows API into many chapters then gave example code for the functins in that chapter.

   If the authors were restricted to 600 pages, they did a pretty good job of covering the important details.

   The good thing about this book for a student is that the functions from the API are listed in the book. I mean - who has a computer with them all the time? I can go to the library and write code, because I have this book - I don't have to have my computer.

   If I had any complaint it is that there weren't even more examples. But I can't complain overall - it is a good book for people just getting started with the API




4. I have owned this book for about 3 weeks and finally started using it. I would give this book my best rating.

   I had no idea, before buying this book, that you could find / do and use so much of the API in Visual Basic.

   Pappas and Murray have opened a whole new dimension for me as a Visual Basic programmer.




5. This book is a great waste of paper. All functions, constants and structures declared can be found in the win32api.txt file that comes with VB. This book is a little handy for describing the what each argument means in an API declaration but it could definatly use ALOT more examples if not at least 1 for EACH function and not just 1 or 2 for the whole chapter (that would actually make it valuable). Knowing the meaning of each argument in an api declaration does not mean you automatically know how to use it. I bought this book to help me out on a project and it turned out to be a great waste of cash. Great reference book if you ALREADY know how to use the api.

5 comments about Visual Basic Design Patterns VB 6.0 and VB.NET (With CD-ROm).

1. The author means well, in trying to touch on all of the design patterns mentioned in the GoF book (showing how each pattern might be implemented in VB 6 and VB .Net), but the code snippets in the book are often too difficult to follow, sad to say. In reading the sample code, there are many points at which you ask yourself: "What does this variable do? Where did it come from? What the..."

   It's not that his code is faulty, it all makes sense when you open up the CDRom and go through things slowly, but the snippets in the book are too sparse to really follow without having your computer on and the VB projects open before you. This "sparseness" was likely done to keep the book's length down some, and if you don't mind looking at your monitor as you read the chapters then I suppose you'll do ok.

   My inclination however, is to read the chapters first, *then* look at the code, and I just couldn't do that here and make sense of things. Also, I didn't particularly enjoy some of the sample programs (I thought the "swim meet" samples were somewhat convoluted, for instance), but that could just be my problem.

   Now that the critiques are out of the way, I'll give the author credit for doing a good job in explaining why you would use design pattern XYZ and under which circumstances, and for listing pattern examples in both VB 6 and VB .Net. It's certainly not a bad book, just a little tough to follow without VB sitting open next to you.




2. As of April 2002, this was the only book to explain patterns using VB.NET code.

   It is poorly edited. In the first ten pages of Chapter 2, I found three editing errors that interfered with comprehension of the materials. As I browsed much of the rest of the book, I was annoyed by having to first wade through a VB6 example before getting to the VB7 (VB.NET) example. If I want to be conversant in the still quite new (and very hot) pattern approach to OO, why would I care very much about the old version of VB?

   My plan is to just study the original Gang of Four book and to put this one on the self as a reference in case I have difficulty with implementing in VB.NET.




3. The source code implementation of the design patterns presented in this book differ radically bewteen vb6 and vb.net (as one might presume). Unfortunately, the vast majority of the supporting text is geared towards presenting an understanding of the vb6 code. It appears as though the vb.net(vb7...) material was added as an afterthought(in a rush), probably after the book had already been largely written. The vb7 material is brief, vague and frankly incorrect in some of the examples! Please don't make your future(?) customers pay for the fact that you got caught with a finished book on a technology platform(vb6), whose sunset was imminent.



4. Other reviewer already pointed the trend of making such books. I have to say even the first book in his series (Java) is not a good book.
   Comparing these books with the original GoF book, the only credit I can give the author is giving an example to each pattern, which is quite a easy job for anyone who knows both the pattern and the language. The GoF book gives much better explaination for patterns (with examples in c++). Therefore this book is only useful to someone who has no knowledge of c++. Even for these people, I would recommand to read this book with GoF book together, GoF first for understanding one pattern, then this book for example of that pattern.



5. This book, while trying to clarify the subject of implementing design patterns in VB and VB.net, mostly manages to confuse.

   Since I had read the GOF book "Design Patterns : Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software" before I purchased this book, "visual basic design patterns" by Cooper, I was pretty familiar with the patterns and the solutions for the 23 patterns outlined by the GoF. However, Cooper manages to make his book hard to follow by not including complete code samples and by literally jumping to different examples to illustrate the same pattern. The reader is never really gets a chance to "get in the groove" with the author. It seems to me to be like a poorly edited movie with too many unneeded jump cuts in the middle of the same scene.

   If you've never tried to code up the patterns in VB before ( as I hadn't), you absolutely **MUST** open and look at the completed sample code on the cd while reading the book to comprehend and "grok" the VB solutions.

   Interestingly, I had no trouble at all reading and comprehending the majority of the GoF book, "Design Patterns : Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software" on a first and only read through it... ...So I know it's not an issue of basic comprehension with this VB pattern book, it's just poorly organized.

   Truth be told, what this book needs is to be re-edited a couple of times for clarity. It has great potential, and but it forces you to run the cd while reading the text to follow the completed patterns.

   That is all well and good, but in my opinion the text in a book should stand alone. This principal is used in all the other programming books I have read. (over 150) This is particularly bad if you are trying to read the book while **NOT** propped up in front of a computer. --- i.e. at the airport or on the back porch at home.
   
   n.

No comments about Visual Basic 5 Secrets (Bible).

No comments about Activex Controls With Visual Basic 5.0.

2 comments about Visual Basic 5 Fundamentals Unleashed.

1. If you are new to programming and want to really learn vb 5. DON'T BUY THIS. But if have a lot of experinece this if for you.



2. This book was fast paced and very descriptive. It helped me out tremendously.

No comments about Using Visual Basic: Writing Windows Applications.