5 comments about Visual Basic 6 Weekend Crash Course.

1. I found this book very beneficial. I hadn't done any programming other than some basic scripts for about 15 years. I found this book brought me up to date with VB6 and made me productive quickly.
   I find myself returning to the book as a resource for syntax help quite frequently.
   It may take someone completely new to VB a little longer to go through, but it is well worth it.



2. To me, this book teaches Visual Basic 6 in a friendly manner, but it lacks explanation in some areas. Even though, it still is able to teach programming farely well.
   Watch out! This book does contain flaws in code. I encourage you to buy a little reference book so you are able to point out and debug the wrong code.
   This book isn't a newbies dream come true, but it is a decently good Visual Basic 6 book.



3. OK, so it took a effort approaching that of Hercules, and I'm an experienced programmer with quite a few other computer languages under my belt -- but at least we know it's possible!

   I finished the book in 14 hours, 15 minutes -- including all of the review questions (usually just a mental affirmation when I knew the answer), plus 10 minutes to set up the included version of VB on my computer.

   One of the greatest things about this book is its motivating format. It's a challenge -- learn the essentials of Visual Basic in a weekend!

   And it was that challenge, plus the generally very positive reviews at Amazon.com, that motivated me to pick *this* book instead of a different title. Simply put, I decided this past week (because of a couple of opportunities that came up) that I ought to learn VB -- preferably, by Monday!

   I finished the book 15 minutes ago, at 11:35 p.m. Sunday night.

   My advice: start earlier in the week, and try to get in a bit extra time as you go along. Other matters took some of my time on Saturday and Sunday, and if I hadn't gained an hour and a half on Thursday evening, and half an hour on Friday, I couldn't have finished tonight.

   The other great benefit is that Mansfield majors on the things you'll use a lot, and skips the things you'll use less, to produce a package that actually *can* be completed in a short (and hence motivating) time frame. He claims "the VB vocabulary has been carefully surveyed to determine which commands you need to know for nearly all programming." Obviously, I can't verify that from experience -- but throughout the book he seems to know what he's talking about.

   Compare my experience in learning VB via this book with, say, my Java expedition: I began an 1100-page Java text almost a year ago, and I'm still stuck on page 257.

   Negatives: yes, it could definitely use some better editing, including, in places, editing of the code supplied. For humor, my own favorite example of this was:

   --------------------------------------
   For I = 1 to Numberofcopies
   Printer.Print Text1.Text
   Next I

   Notice the convention of indenting the code inside a For...Next loop. This graphically illustrates the loop.
   --------------------------------------

   (Did you see the indentation? Me neither!)

   Far less amusing is that the author should've included on page 279 or so the code for cmdNew_Click() that's on page 302. Also, my main finished application didn't behave quite as expected -- and if I'm "keeping to schedule," I didn't have time to debug it (that's OK, I learned enough from it).

   Incidentally, though, another reviewer's complaint of illegal names -- as in "1stSearch" (a variable name can't begin with a digit) -- was INCORRECT. The previous reviewer misread the text, which reads, e.g., "LSTSEARCH" (as in LIST BOX) -- *not* "1STSEARCH".

   For most chapters, you'll need to use your computer to really follow and learn the material. Unfortunately, the version of VB on the CD-ROM won't allow you to walk through all the steps in some of the final chapters, but the author (obviously knowing this) has provided more screen shots, allowing you to follow along.

   A time-saving tip: don't type in the code! Simply cut and paste it from the CD-ROM. Then review it line for line, either from the book pages or on your screen.

   A perfect book? No. But all in all, this text got the job done for me. I'm by no means a VB expert after one weekend and 375 pages, but I sure as heck am on my way. I give Mansfield's book a quite solid 4 stars out of 5.




4. I agree with everyone else that the book has some value, but not worth more than $10. The Wiley site is unresponsive to the feed back and judging from the amount of time that has elapsed since it hit the shelf, the publisher dosen't care. There's no errata sheet to download. I'll certainly keep this publisher's name on a post it on the monitor to AVOID future purchases.



5. This book starts out with an interest and plausible concept: to teach the reader the fundamentals of VB6 in a weekend. And it would be able to accomplish this task in at least a "four-star" fashion if the author and/or publisher had attempted to review the code for errors and debug the code. From chapter 22 onward the code errors are so serious that one cannot run the sample program since one uncorrected error builds on another (and coding errors are simple repeated in the code on the included CD) the book becomes practically impossible to follow along by coding on your own computer after chapter 22. What's worse, the publisher does not publish an errata on their website for this book.

2 comments about Software Visualization: Visualizing the Structure, Behaviour, and Evolution of Software.

1. Este libro, es demasiado teorico.
   Esperaba algo con ejemplos mas practicos y detallados sobre la visualizacion de grandes proyectos de software.
   Sirve como punto de partida de alguien que este interesado en la materia, para seguir estudiando la materia, pero no para una aplicacion rapida de lo ahi conversado.



2. The previous reviewer (in Spanish) criticizes the book for being too theoretical and not having practical examples with details about visualizing large projects. They state that it is a starting point for someone interested in studying the subject, but not as a quick start for visualization. This is not surprising.
   
   The description on the back cover refers to this book as "the first textbook on software visualization", which "targets both students and teachers in computer science". It further states that it is written for graduate students and researchers, "as it will provide a broad and systematic overview of the area including many pointers to tools available today".
   
   In essence, such a review is like going to an Italian restaurant, then disparaging the food because you really wanted Mexican instead. It's not fair to the author or future readers.
   
   
   
   The author does a phenomenal job of covering a very broad topic exactly as he intends to. The writing style is brief and informative, and the organization is excellent. The book is broken down into coherent sections that address specific methodologies that exist (or have existed) in this field. To wit, here is a summary of the chapter contents:
   
   1. Introduction
   Definition and explanation on software visualization, taxonomies and surveys, etc.
   2. Visualization Basics
   Basics of human perception and cognition, graphical representations, techniques, and metaphors.
   3. Static Program Visualization
   Observing properties such as program architecture, control flow, data flow, etc.
   4. Dynamic Program Visualization
   Visualizing runtime data, including algorithm animation and visual debugging.
   5. Visualizing the Evolution of Software Systems
   Visualizing how software structure, coupling, etc. evolve over time.
   6. Evaluation
   Quantitative and qualitative evaluations of various methods, plus empirical results.
   7. Conclusions
   Summaries, resources for further reading, and though on the future of visualization.
   
   As a Master's student in Computer Science researching Software Visualization, this book is an invaluable resource. It covers virtually all of the seminal works and major ideas that have influenced the field in its short history. The author certainly provides abundant resources for the reader to find the individual tools, and if they are difficult to comprehend or use, the tool is to blame, not the author.
   
   I highly recommend the book as a reference for the theory, history, and progress in the field of Software Visualization.

2 comments about Professional Visual Basic Interoperability - COM and VB6 to .NET.

1. Its only a couple of months after the retail release of Visual Studio .Net and we are still coming to terms with the new reality - and it will take months and not weeks to feel cool about it! Once you start to feel comfortable with VB.Net the language - I am still a bit shell-shocked - then you have to start thinking about migration and legacy. This is when all the smiles drop! From a time and cost perspective we know that this is where we have to get it right.

   What is great about this book is that its written by highly skilled and seasoned fellow programmers - these guys know their stuff - they know the issues - they know the reality, and they focus just on interop! Make no mistake interop is not a cake-walk and we need a technical bridge. The discussion on API calls, COM & Marshalling and DCOM-Remoting-Web Services were terrific.




2. I have been pouring through a lot of books on .Net and when I first pulled this book out of the box I thought there may not be much to it because it didn't appear too thick. I couldn't have been more mistaken.
   First, the print is smaller than most Wrox books I've seen. Second, this book packs in a lot of practical, heavy technical advice and samples in communication from .Net to COM, COM to .Net, Custom Marshaling and much more. Its well worth the money you'll spend and sure to become a heavily used technical resource.

4 comments about Visual Basic.NET: A Beginner's Guide (Beginner's Guide).

1. This book offers instruction on how to organize your code and explains when you need to use which loop structure etc. Good book to build a foundation. If your looking for something that offers fancy displays you can be disappointed but then you missed the intended message. Book helps you understand what is going on in the code and more.



2. If you are just getting into programming, or VB.NET programming, this is a great book to pick up.

   This book starts with the absolute basics in programming and builds on it. It hits all of the fundamentals of programming, such as variables, their scope, if..then...else statements, loops, arrays, variable comparisons, etc.

   This book doesn't get too advanced, though I did wish it would have touched on object oriented programming a little bit more. The earlier a beginner gets into OOP the better.

   If you have programming experience, or experience with VB in general, pass this book up. You probably won't get so much (or anything) out of this book and there are better books to go to. As the title says, this is a beginner's guide.




3. I have been programming in Visual Basic .Net (for Windows) now for about 2 years. I began with this book and I recommend that others do the same. It is an excellent primer on the language and will get you up and going in a very short time.
   
   The book begins with an explanation of what Visual Basic .Net is and an introduction to "object oriented programming." This simply refers to the visual objects you create, like buttons, check boxes, etc, that you often see in Windows applications or on the web. Each chapter provides a project for you to work on, allowing you to build your knowledge from chapter to chapter in this hands-on manner. At the end of each chapter is a "Mastery Check" which lists all of the things you should have learned in the chapter.
   
   For those with any programming experience (even old guys like me with FORTRAN programming experience), picking up Visual Basic .Net will be relatively easy and very rewarding. I have programmed games for my 5th grade Sunday School class that the kids love to play, and I have programmed applications that allow me to work with large data files and generate output that I can manipulate further in Microsoft Excel. I have only scratched the surface; the possible applications are endless.
   
   For me, the hardest part of learning to program in a .Net language was getting used to the "object oriented" part of the programming. The abundance of examples in this book helped me tremendously. Step-by-step examples and sample code are provided for each project. Even now, I often go back to this book as a refernece on how to do stuff right.
   
   Finally, as the book's title implies, the material in this book is not exhaustive; however, it gets you started in the right direction. I strongly recommend that starting programmers and those new to Visual Basic .Net start with this book. In addition, I recommend that you get one of the books in the Deitel series for more intense learning and the Visual Basic .Net Language Reference published by Microsoft. Together, these 3 books will get you going and keep you going. As far as the programming language itself, look for an academic version instead of buying directly from Microsoft, and you can save a fair amount of money. Good luck!



4. If you are new to programming, I would definitely recommend this book. I thought Chapters 1-9 were great and easy to understand. There were some errors in the later chapters in the practice code.
   
   If you are a programmer I would recommend picking something else...

5 comments about Professional Visual Basic 6 XML.

1. This is has been a disappointment for me. I purchased this book because of a project I am working on. It told me everything I already know and gave terribly laid out examples.

   I was never quite sure working through the examples if the code was required or if the Authors were merely showing us what they could do with XML/VB.




2. The following is a sentence from page 131 paragraph 1 of this book: "After declaring a generic Node object to serve as the parent node for the new node, and a variable to hold our function response, which we optimistically set to True - which will be changed if our attempt at adding the node fails, we check to see if the node index is within bounds, using IsNodeIndexOK, described just after this function."

   The logical flow to the entire book in not much better.

   This makes learning anything about XML and VB difficult. I have spent more time attempting to determine what the authors are tring to say than I have learning about XML.

   I was able to work with the sample code to some extent. But even the sample code was incomplete and more difficult to follow than necessary.

   With a complete rewrite this could possibly be a good book.




3. I purchased this book to learn to do DOM programming, not to use the code provided by the authors. I was hoping for clear examples, instead I got a book that expects me to download their sample code or type it all in (and there is ALOT) in order to easily follow the samples. Typically this would be fine, but a majority of the functions and classes you can download are poorly explained, or not explained at all. This book is more like instructions on how to use a lot of code written by the authors to manipulate XML.
   I own two other WROX books, these book were easy to follow and gave just the right amount of code to get me going. This book does neither. Big disappointment.



4. Although Microsoft has moved on to VB.net, many developers are still using VB6. It has become increasingly hard to find VB6 XML info on, say, MSDN, so a book like this is essential.

   The code examples are clear and practical. The book manages to work well both as a how-to and a reference. If I were to nitpick, there are two things would mention. First, because of when the book was published, it does not cover the most currenrt version MSXML. However, porting the code samples to newer versions of the DLL is quite easy. Second, the book does not come with a CD. An HTML or PDF version of the book, with a searchable index, would be sweet.

   Overalll, though, this is a good deal if, like so many, you are still working with VB6.




5. According to an e-mail I recieved from Wiley, "Wrox Press Book Company was liquidated in the Spring and no longer exists. The books were sold to various companies. Wiley acquired only 34 of the over 350 books and the rights to the www.wrox.com website address. You'll find the complete list of books currently available from Wiley/Wrox Press at http://www.wrox.com/misc-pages/booklist.shtml "

   This book is not on that list. That means that the publisher no longer provides support for it, and it will probably never be updated.

   I bought this book because it was one of the very few books available that covers using XML in Visual Basic. Altho not the easiest book to follow, it does contain a great deal of useful information. Unfortunately, both VB and XML are changing rapidly, and the information is getting out of date fast.

   By the way, don't even bother sending in the registration card that comes with this book. Wiley didn't renew the business reply permit, so the card will just bounce back in the mail.

5 comments about Programming Microsoft Visual Basic .NET (Core Reference) (Core Reference).

1. Even if I don't use VB Net, I enjoy that book: a "just" view in comparisons between dot-Net and VB6 (not always at 100% in favor of VB.Net), and insight, intelligence, and inner working we don't even see often, if not at all, even in C# books! There are two major weak points: Windows Forms (I recommend Chris Sells' book) and database (I suspect Francesco didn't entirely wrote these chapters, as the style is a little bit different in those chapters than the other parts of the book, anyhow, my impression), again too superficial ( I somehow recommend the MS Press book ADO.NET by Sceppa). Even if I use C#, I often found that Francesco Balena did a much better job than what I find in other of my C# and Managed C++ reference books. NOW, my copy, of the first edition, has indeed a printed page number 1576. So why Amazon annonces 800 pages, I don't know.

   I would have give only four stars, but since I find very hard to find a book of my liking about dot-Net in general, I cannot than praise that book for an extra star.




2. This is the most through book on VB.Net I've ever found. It's a steep read, but if there are any dark corners of VB.Net that haven't had light shed on them, then you aren't useing VB to it's fullest potential, and you haven't read this book.
   
   The current price of this book on Amazon right now (~50.00) makes it more than a steal with the amount of information in it. Espcially compared to the avarage cost of a class in any programming language.
   
   Though the book is written for a programmer who is at least a novice in VB6, certain versions of the book provide a CD with an eBook of the authors VB6 book (with code examples) as well as a PDF of this book. So, if you are just getting into VB.Net you'll have some place to turn when Balena starts refrencing well known VB6 syntax.



3. This book and .NET XML Web Services Step by Step by Adam Freeman and Allen Jones have answered virtually all of my questions about building production distributed database applications using XML Web services. If you're interested, you can download a sample of my working code at www.opointe.com



4. When compared to other books on the subject, even those in the same MSPress series, this book is unmatched. The depth and quality of information is astounding.
   
   Many programming books spend 500+ pages on basic concepts, fail to establish a foundation of knowledge and leave you in a position that prevents you from exploiting the technology. In many cases, you have read 500+ pages and have learned how to make a clock or a simple card game. Not so with this book.
   
   It is obvious that the author is well versed with every nuance of .NET, as he goes deeper than any other source, while keeping his explanations clear and understandable. Every explanation is concise and useful.
   
   Though the author clearly warns that this book is not for beginners, I have chosen to use it to start from the ground up. Surprisingly, his style has allowed me to understand nearly every concept, and will likely allow me to accelerate my proficiency well beyond my experience.
   
   The author claims that the scope and size of this book could have been separated into several books. I could not agree more. This speaks to the dedication of the author to provide more than a text of useless fillers. Each one of the 1,400+ pages provides useful information. A comment in the Forward suggests that this massive book be read from beginning to end. Though I scoffed at such a challenge, I have found myself doing just that.
   
   I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to understand Visual Basic .NET.
   
   This book easily ranks #1 on my all-time favorites list.



5. My favorite. Well written, understandable, to the point and easy to read. Read sequentially or use as a reference. Covers pretty much everything you need to know.
   
   I prefer referring to his sections on ADO.NET (200 pages) and ASP.NET (330 pages) to using other books on these topics.
   
   A big book that will impress your peers. Can be used for bicep curls and tricep extensions in a pinch.
   
   If this is representative of Francesco Balena's work then I recommend anything he writes.

No comments about Introduction to Programming with Visual Basic.NET, An & Microsoft VB. NET & Document VB.NET.

5 comments about Visual Basic .NET Class Design Handbook: Coding Effective Classes.

1. As an experienced developer, I thought this book was not bad. I was looking for a book to strengthen up my class building skillset, but most of this material is just a presentation of fundamentals that I already know. Unfortunately, this book failed to clarify on topics where I lack a strong understanding because they don't really go very deep. Writing is repetitive and sometimes hard to decipher.



2. Silly, naive me. I purchased a book with the title "Visual Basic .NET Class Design Handbook" in order to learn more about effective class design, and particularly the expectations of previous Wrox books having wonderful practical examples. But you know you've made a mistake when you receive your book and on page 2 read "This isn't a book about object-oriented analysis and design." It seems as though someone asked the authors "What time is it?" and they wrote a book on how to build a watch and the space/time continuum. I found the single chapter devoted to classes in Sybex's Visual Basic .NET Programming far more valuable than this book. Perhaps it's one of the cases where the title just does not match the intended content -- I'm willing to give the benefit of the doubt and give two stars instead of one. But I'd also hesitate to ask the authors for directions to the restroom, afraid that I would receive a lecture on the digestive process and the history of plumbing.



3. Ever been looking for a book but you were not sure what you were looking for because you were not sure what you don't know.
   
   That was me before I finally found it. I am a self taught VB programmer who was REALLY struggling with the OOP concepts. Before buying this book I had purchased 4 or 5 other VB.NET books that didn't cut the mustard at getting me over the OOP hump. And then I found this book.
   
   This book takes nothing for granted and explains so much in such great detail. What is garbage collection? What happens when you call a Reference Type by Value? By Reference? What is constructor chaining? What is an interface? What is inheritance? (And on and on it goes knocking out one question as a time to the tune of HUNDREDS of questions. I have now red this book four times. (Scanned twice, read once, and now am doing a slow thorough read.) It is TRUE that this book is NOT on Object Modeling/Object Oriented Design (now if I could just get my brain wrapped around that). But that is not a great starting point for learning .NET. What I didn't know that I needed to know was that the CLASS is at the heart of OOP fundamentals. Now I would not say I am an expert, but I can pretty accurately conceptualize OOP principles and how .NET works.
   
   If you are in a similar situation, this book is THE book for you.
   
   SBS



4. This book is pretty good. It could use a little more 'big picture' information. It does a very good job of differentiating protected, sealed, shared... class modifiers and how they work on a technical level, but not necisarially why you would do it.
   
   I think the book has a good bit of value for somebody who is going to architect a small system or build classes. I think this book combined with the sam's "the object oriented thought process" book are a very good match to introduce intelligent people to modern class construction and use. The book really isn't for slow learners. If you need 'for dummies' books, stay away from this one. If you have a reasonable IQ, then its a very concise lesson without much garbage.



5. I was kinda disappointed with this book. I relied on the hight reviews that's why I bought it, thinking I'll be learning more on how to design good classes from problem analysis, but didn't get what I was hoping for. The topics discussed in the book can be found in most of VB.net books around, and this book emphasized that it is not an object-oriented type of learning material, so for those beginner OOP programmers like me searching for a good book from problem analysis to class design, look anywhere else and please recommend if you found one.

5 comments about Visual Basic .NET Text Manipulation Handbook: String Handling and Regular Expressions.

1. Wow! Quite impressed! I have been programming in VB, C and Java for years. This book is a concise explanation of strings with great history for perspective and detail about .NET implementation.

   This book reads very well and has great code examples. I suppose someone that doesn't know anything about programming shouldn't be trying to read a book about string encoding and regular expressions in the first place. This is not an introductoryto VB.net book (thank god!)

   If you are an intermediate or greater developer that is new to .NET then this book is a must read. I've seen so many VB developers hurt themselves with string concat in VB. This book explains why and how the .NET framework solves those problems.

   Regular Expressions is such a powerful tool. It is a shame that it took so many years for it to become part of the Microsoft arsenal. It has been used in Perl for decades.

   It behooves every programmer to learn about the following three topics...

   1] The StringBuilder class
   2] Interning Strings
   3] Regular Expressions.

   Also, in the past, I have not been a big fan of wrox books. ..not sure why. I think, comparatively, they were hard to read. Even when reading topics that I thouroughly knew, I found the wording and layout less than ideal. It was probably just a bad group of editors. (There are even a few mispellings and mistakes in this book) However, I am a big fan of this new layout. Smaller books covering specific topics that you want to learn is the way to go.

   This book is great. Get it.




2. Unless you are writing games for a living, YOU WILL be spending a lot of time manipulating text. I have a true love/hate relationship with using regular expressions but there is no argument about the sheer power they bring to a developer's workbench. This guide is very concise and is a `must have' reference book. Well organized and written.

   I don't know what's happening with it's publication. I got it from Amazon from a re-seller and I'm not quite sure if it's still being printed. I know that when I went to download the sample code I was redirected to another site. Whatever it's status is, don't miss out and get your copy now. I don't know of another reference for the .NET developer for text/string/regular expressions.




3. This book was sold by Wrox to APress. The code download is available directly from APress at http://support.apress.com.



4. This is a great book. Period. Regular Expressions is a chaotic subject to start, I couldn't find usefull help on MSDN. This book does a great job bridging the gap. I'm still a novice in Regular Expressions (it's too spagetti-ish for a business software developer), but this book helped me implement whatever lightweight logic I needed.
   
   Then why 4 stars, you probably ask. Because I found it to be a little incoherent to pass the 5 star benchmark. The author is a little too all-over-the-place-ish. But it was well worth the money spent.



5. This is a very wordy book for a topic that should probably have a more reference style coverage. It focuses a little bit on how to use the matching functions in .net, and a little bit on how to use regular expressions.
   
   The .net stuff is really easy to get on your own, and the regular expressions stuff is so glossy that its not that useful.
   
   I don't like having this book on my shelf since I can never find anything useful at a glance, but its not worth anything to sell. Maybe I'll burn it.

5 comments about Microsoft Visual Basic 5 Step by Step (Step By Step (Microsoft)).

1. I started learning VB about 4 months ago by following the examples set forth within this book. It is easy to read, however, after reading this book, you are left thirsting for more information. I think more actual commands should have been included with an explanation. I am now writing Active X components as well as an on-line inventory program. I owe alot to this book.



2. If you want to start learning about Visual Basic, this book is for you. No programming experience required but it helps to have programming backgound. Eventually you will need a more advanced book.



3. In a nutshell, the book lives up to it's name. Far from the content,the binding is coming apart for every page read. The author goes into structure and the basics for a good foundation to raise above and move to the next stage.I found no errors in the practice files, this says alot about how it was developed. Even though he doesn't talk about advanced programming techniques, this should come at no surprise since the book is designed for the newcomer in Visual Basic. Worth every penny. I will probably read another one of Michael books on the subject in the future.



4. I had never done anything even remotely related to programming before I read this book, and yet I was able to use it as a springboard to Visual C++ and J++. By the fourth chapter I was able to create marketable applications using purely original code. Covers everything and if you don't want Everything it gives you that option too. I recommend this book to anyone who has No experience but is interested (even a little, it grabs those who aren't sometimes) in learning. Have fun, I did.



5. If you want to learn VB then this is the book. I know VB 5 is getting old but there are little differences between the VB5 and VB6 (Neither is really "WEB FOCUSED"). So pick up this book and learn the language and product and get ready for VB7 which will be web ready. This is a good start into the world of VB. Easy reading and fun.