VB Book Reviews

You'll notice that not all of the books are about Visual Basic; that's because Windows and Web programming are beginning to overlap -just look at the MS Active Desktop not mention intranets and extranets. Say hello to HTML, DHTML, Scriptlets, JavaScript, VBScript, JScript, Java and other web related technologies. After you check out these titles, and read the reviews, you may want to jump to Amazon.Com to purchase them. A few of these books I have not reviewed myself but have been included for the sake of completeness. I have marked those with a ** so that you will know which ones they are. Additional reviews for these titles are usually available at the Amazon.Com site.

Beginning Visual Basic 6 Peter Wright / 1998 Wrox Press IBSN:1-861001-05-3 By using lots of hands on examples and hundreds of screenshots, this book will act as a roadmap for you to learn Visual Basic programming. It will take you on a comprehensive and fun tour of everything you want to know about programming in VB - from your first programs through to ActiveX controls, graphics, and the important new ADO database tools. At the end of the book you will even be ready to look at some professional programs and case studies. All this will add up to a lot of fun as you build a solid foundation for your own future career as a professional VB programmer.**   Description  Interview

Beginning Visual Basic 5 Peter Wright / 1997 Wrox Press IBSN:1-861000-39-1 Starts at square one for novice programmers, and progresses rather quickly to more complex subjects. Excellent coverage of varied topics including API, graphics, classes, ActiveX, and database. If you prefer a quick pace, have previous programming experience, or are using this as a text book, this is one of the best beginner's books you can buy. Reviewed by Burt Abreu    Sample Chapter

Learn to Program with Visual Basic: For Absolute Beginners John Smiley/1999 ActivePath IBSN:1-902745-00-0 This is a great book for those new to VB who need a little slower pace and a more step by step approach. The book is much better quality than the flood of titles aimed at 'dummies' and 'idiots' and while it does cover all the basics such as using controls, it also gives the novice a good exposure to some basics of program design, error handling and other real programming concepts. The author is a popular teacher at ZDU and he uses the classroom metaphor to walk you through the development of a class project that will give the raw newbie a good foundation. Includes a CD with the source code and VB6 Working Model Edition. Reviewed by Burt Abreu

Learn to Program with Visual Basic: 100 Practical Techniques John Smiley/1999 ActivePath IBSN:1-902745-06-X This book makes you a participant in a television VB show as viewers call in with their questions and get answers from John Smiley. The examples cover a variety of areas and I found this 'active participant' format used by ActivePath a very effective way to present beginner material. There are 100 useful examples presented in this entertaining format, making this a good book to increase your programming skills and minimize boredom. The book does not proceed step by step through the IDE and I recommend his other book for that.Reviewed by Burt Abreu

Murach's Visual Basic 6 Koop, Prince, Murach/ 1999 Murach IBSN:1-890774-04-9 This book was a bit of a surprise considering I had never heard of this publisher. It didn't take long to discover that Murach's Visual Basic 6 is a good book to get you started with VB. You start out building your first program in chapter one and in the following chapters you will work with another dozen real world sample programs that cover much of the material that an entry-level buisness programmer might be expected to know. Among other things, the book gives good overall coverage of database programming issues. Note: This review has been modified based on readers comments. Some readers who are brand new to programming found this book a little too fast for them. If you need that extra bit of help you may check out one of the books by John Smiley instead which covers less material but the pace may be more comfortable for many novices.

Ready-to-Run Visual Basic Code Library Rod Stephens / 1999 John Wiley & Sons IBSN:0-471-33345-X I love Rod's books, not only are they well written and useful but Rod makes an effort to break the mold by not producing cookie cutter books that contain large amounts of rehashed material. This book, with over 170 basic to advanced code items, will teach you some great techniques while providing lots of ready to run items for your code library. The code is detailed and includes his usual mix of tips and workarounds that will help make you a better programmer. Reviewed by Burt Abreu

Bug Proofing Visual Basic Rod Stephens / 1999 John Wiley & Sons IBSN:0-471-32351-9 Some VB books give basic tips on error trapping, but none come close to this book which is devoted in its entirety to avoiding, exposing and reducing bugs. The author discusses the VB debug tools but just as importantly discusses ways to prevent bugs by suggesting strategies to improve design, coding and documentation. He draws on his experience to identify areas that are prone to 'bugs' and shows ways to 'bug proof' them. As an added bonus you will learn a lot about the design and coding process of a professional programmer. Unless you are an experienced VB programmer -or are eager to join the ranks of developers shipping buggy app's that require frequent patches- this book is a must buy. Reviewed by Burt Abreu

VB COM: VB6 Programmer’s Introduction to COM Thomas Lewis/ 1999 Wrox Press IBSN:1-861002-13-0 "Traditionally VB programmers didn't really need to worry about COM because Visual Basic made COM decisions for us all the time, without so much as even asking. But COM is too important to VB programmers today to be left as a hidden element...VB programmers need to appreciate what's really going on if they want to create well-written and successful programs. New VB programmers and enterprise VB programmers alike need to become COM-aware, and this is the book that will begin that move. Every Visual Basic programmer needs to understand COM."**   Description  Interview  Sample Chapter

Programming Distributed Applications With Com and Microsoft Visual Basic 6.0 Ted Pattison/1998 IBSN:1-572319-61-5 Microsoft's DCOM is the key technology for enterprise development for the Windows platform. Written for the working Visual Basic developer or project manager, this book introduces the basics of DCOM objects in a clear style. All examples are written in Visual Basic, and the reader learns about new Microsoft BackOffice technologies such as Microsoft Transaction Server (MTS) and Microsoft Message Queue Server (MSMQ). If your shop uses Microsoft tools, Visual Basic 6 stands ready to write today's scalable distributed applications using DCOM. This well-organized text shows you how DCOM works and what advantages it offers for today's enterprise developer using Visual Basic 6.**

Beginning VB6 Objects Peter Wright / 1998 Wrox Press IBSN:1-861001-72-X Great reviews for one of my favorite authors. This book is for Visual Basic programmers who have a grasp of the fundamentals of Visual Basic and want to learn how to do object-oriented development. This book is ideal for aspiring programmers with intermediate ability who wish to tackle ideas that are more complex. **    Description  Interview  Sample Chapter

Beginning Objects with VB 5 Peter Wright / 1998 Wrox Press IBSN:1-861001-45-2 This book starts with the basics of OOP and progresses at a rapid pace into all areas of object-oriented development. This book assumes some basic knowledge of VB so don't expect to find any of the filler that many books start out with -it jumps right into OO in chapter one. If are familiar with the basics of VB, want to learn OOP and are comfortable with a fast paced book this book is a good choice. There are small projects throughout the book and a large final project to wrap it all up.

Visual Basic Graphics Programming Rod Stephens / 1998 Wiley Computer ISBN: 0-471-15533-0 If you are making an image processor or if you just want to spice up your multimedia applications using sophisticated algorithms and techniques, then this book is for you. It takes you from the basics of GDI in Visual Basic to the Fourth dimension and Hypercubes, everything demonstrated with working sample programs. It is the definitive source for graphics programming in Visual Basic. Advanced. Reviewed by Søren Christensen

Visual Basic 6 Win32 API Tutorial Jason Bock / 1998 Wrox Press IBSN:1-861002-43-2 This is a great book for those who are just beginning to explore the API. While not as exhaustive as Dan Appleman's book, this is in no way a liteweight book. It is well written and covers the core DLL's and several others. There are good sample projects that will put you through your paces. While API usage, in most cases, is non-trivial, this book does a great job of presenting the subject in as easy a fashion as you are likely to find. If you are a novice to VB or the API this is a book you'll want to take a look at.   Description  Interview

Visual Basic 5.0 Programmer's Guide to the Win32 API Dan Appleman / 1997 Ziff Davis IBSN:1-56276-446-2 In depth coverage of Win32 API for the VB programmer. Dan covers a lot of material and goes a step further to explain background, syntax, usage, and other material so that you can continue to use this knowledge to explore the API on your own. Plenty of great examples and materials on the CD. However, unless you are expecting to do a fair amount of work with the API, you may find this book too involved for the novice programmer.

Official Microsoft HTML Help Authoring Kit Steve Wexler / 1998 Microsoft Press ISBN:1-57231-603-9 The official source of information on the subject of HTML Help. It's a bit behind the times now as it covers version 1.1 instead of the current 1.2, but this book contains plenty of information and examples you won't find elsewhere. You can find some free updates to some of the material in this book on their page at MSPress Online and article Q:183377 at Microsoft has some more information. Should be required reading for anyone working with HTML Help. Reviewed by Dave Liske

Custom Controls Library Rod Stephens / 1998 Wiley Computer IBSN:0-471-24267-5 Excellent book on ActiveX creation. The 101 controls included on the CD alone justify the price, not to mention that they all come with source code so that they can be extended. As an added bonus you'll not only learn about creating ActiveX; the controls included cover topics like image processing, data display and manipulation, buttons, text manipulation and much more. While not a book for the complete novice, this book is something I think you'll want to add to your library.

Beginning VB6 Database John Connell/1999 Wrox Press IBSN:1-861001-06-1 I had the pleasure to be one of the technical reviewers on this book and since I have limited database experience I was looking forward to it -I wasn't disappointed. The author does a great job of covering this topic and if you need to learn how to build VB user interfaces for databases, access databases with VB using ADO, get an introduction to internet programming using ADO and ASP and even get an introduction to SQL -you won't be disappointed either. There is much more to this book, too much to review in this mini-review in fact, but the projects include building. Data aware controls, an Address Book    Description  Interview  Sample Chapter

ADO 2.0 Programmer's Reference David Sussman,Alex Homer/ 1998 Wrox Press IBSN:1-861001-83-5 This book provides a reference to Microsoft ActiveX Data Objects version 2.0. ADO is the core technology for accessing all kinds of data including relational databases, mail servers, Active Directory, text and other document files, and data in other non-standard formats. It is supplied with many development environments, including Microsoft Visual Studio, C++, Visual Basic, and as part of the Windows NT operating system. **

Oracle Programming with Visual Basic Nick Snowdon/1998 Sybex IBSN:0-78212-32-28 Aimed at programmers who are familiar with Visual Basic and who have been exposed to Oracle, this instructional text covers the popular Oracle/Visual Basic client/server combination from beginning to end. The book opens with a lengthy discussion of the unique architecture of Oracle. The author presents the basics of Oracle's components, database administration processes, and database design issues. By the end of this first part, the reader comes away with a solid understanding of Oracle. The second part adequately covers queries and store procedures and introduces the reader to Oracle's PL/SQL. **

Database Design For Mere Mortals Michael J. Hernandez/1997 Addison-Wesley Developers Press ISBN:0-201-69471-9 A software-independent approach to the basics of developing a database's underlying structure. This book can be used with Access, Visual Basic, FoxPro, Oracle, or any number of other database development products. The main thing about this book is that it fills a huge void in the basics of database design. It takes the reader through all the steps required for the development of tables, relationships, and all those other basics the programming books all assume you know. Another good point is that the book is non-technical. It presents the information in such a way that most people should get the points the first time around.Reviewed by Dave Liske

ASP 2.0 Programmer's Reference Fedorov, Francis, Maharry, Sussman, Ullman / 1999 Wrox Press IBSN:1-861002-45-9 Another hit in Wrox's very popular Programmer's Reference series. Like other books in the series, this one offers a 'quick tour' of ASP syntax, usage and background. It gives a detailed object-by-object review of the ASP object model and the built-in scripting objects. There is coverage of Active Server Components, and some coverage on database access with ADO (a more complete reference of ADO is available in "ADO 2.0 Programmer's Reference"). It has sections on extending ASP with components, ADO, RDS, ADSI and CDO. As usual there are several useful 'quick-reference' appendixes.

Beginning Active Server Pages 2.0 Francis, Kauffman, Llibre, Sussman, Ullman / 1998 Wrox Press IBSN:1-861001-34-7 For those new to ASP or to VB this book sets an easier pace and serves as a perfect introduction to ASP. I found the explanations and sample projects interesting and well written. While a beginner's book the samples presented cover a range of functionality that can be used as the basis for real applications. If you want to create dynamic and interactive web pages with this exciting technology I recommend you check this book out.

Professional ASP Techniques for Web Masters Alex Homer / 1998 Wrox Press IBSN:1-861001-79-7 Another great book by Alex Homer. This book addresses issues concerned with building dynamic Web sites. By automating sites, using Windows NT Server with SQL Server as the data source, and Active Server Pages as the programming environment, it is possible to design your site so that it is simple to control and maintain. Aimed at experienced webmasters.

Active Server Pages 2.0 Francis, Fedorov, Harrison, Homer, Murphy, Sussman, Smith, Wood / 1998 Wrox Press IBSN: Authoritative and exhaustive book on ASP 2.0. Covers what ASP is, using ASP with JavaScript and VBScript, building your own ASP components and much more. A lot of the material in this book is beyond me, but the book comes with real world case studies (with source code) and should be a great addition if your job requires you to understand ASP, or you want to increase your knowledge of the subject. This is not a book for the newbie programmer.

Instant HTML Programmer's Reference Alex Homer, Chris Ullman, Steven Wright / 1997 Wrox Press IBSN:1-861001-56-8 This book is a quick, concise reference to HTML including the HTML 4.0 standard. It covers the different tags supported by Netscape and Microsoft and discusses basic solutions to make pages work on both. It also quickly covers using VBScript, Style Sheets, DHTML, JavaScript with your HTML pages. If you are already familiar with the Internet and WWW and want to learn the latest in HTML programming, this is a great book for your library.

Instant DHTML Scriptlets Dino Esposito / 1998 Wrox Press IBSN:1-861001-38-X Scriptlets are one of the newest technologies from Microsoft, in fact they are only supported in IE4. Basically scriptlets allow programmers to handle DHTML pages as if they were ActiveX components through the use of scripting languages. They are designed to enhance the reusability of code and are tied to the future direction MS is taking in integrating web and desktop technology. If you rely heavily on IE or are a cutting edge web developer you may want to take a look at this book. It is well written, but since this technology is still emergent, it's not for the average newbie programmer.

Professional Style Sheets for HTML and XML Frank Boumphrey / 1998 Wrox Press IBSN:1-861001-65-7 Style sheets are probably the next big face of change that will be widely used on the web. Using them you can place all your styling information in one document and then refer to it to apply that style to all your pages. Similarly if you change information in your style document you automatically change it in all pages -think about the time savings there! This book does a good job of thouroughly explaining the concepts and supplying examples.

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