Hardcore Visual Basic

by Bruce McKinney

Visual Basic wizard Bruce McKinney shows how to blast through the so-called limits of the Visual Basic language and unleash the powerful development tool that lurks within. For the 400,000 Visual... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1572314222
• ISBN13: 9781572314221
• Release Date: July 1997
• Publisher: Microsoft Press
• Length: 700 Pages
• Weight: 3.45 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.9" x 7.4" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

The best book about VB

Even though this book is out of print, I would like to review it. Better late than sorry. This is the best book about VB I have ever read, and a tremendously inspiring book about programming. Even though VB is not my preferred programing language, this book really gave me a kick and I started to appreciate VB in a way that I had never done before.Bruce McKinney does not only reveal all those sneaky details about VB that you whish you had known long before, but also teaches you a lot of useful stuff about the windows API, type libraries and COM. It is not a book for beginners, but should be read as soon as possible after passing the beginners level. Read it carefully from cover to cover, because it will reveal important details about windows and programming that you don't find in other books about advanced VB.Unfortunately, this book is about VB 5.0, which means that it has lost its relevance in the ever changing world of Microsoft Visual Basic. It's a shame that Bruce McKinney did not write a programming book about a more stable programming language. With his knowledge, passion and inspiring writing style I'm sure it would have been a classic book about programming.

A shame it is out of print...

I've been a VB programmer ever since VB 1.0 and a C/C++ programmer before that. With all of the "Teach Yourself xxx in 7 Days" books for beginners and the regurgitated help files with 80% of a 1000 page book taken up with code samples, Hardcore Visual Basic is hands down the best book ever written about programming with Visual Basic. Yes, it doesn't cover specific targets in depth (e.g., database programming, Internet programming, etc.), but it gives you the tools and the knowledge to really utilize the language and environment to its full potential. I haven't released a commercial or internal product without the VbCore.DLL and the Win.TLB support since I bought the book. If you don't have this book yet, be sure and get it while copies are still available. It is a true shame that it is going out of print...

Hardcore VB useful when developing niche app front-ends

I have been using VB off and on for 5+ years to develop very application-specific front-ends for embedded systems. These front-ends have typically been developed for a small group of users, under severe time constraints. I've found VB to be an efficient tool for this kind of development, and I've found this book to be one of the most useful for figuring out how to do things with VB that are unusual or unexpected. Several other programmers I work with, using VB to build non-business, "unorthodox" front-ends have had the same experience. The book is not a substitute for a comprehensive VB reference, nor was it intended to be, as far as I can tell.The author has been criticized for complaining too much about what he perceives as deficiencies in VB. In my opinion, this is one of the things that makes the book valuable. All tools have limits -- it's nice to have a sense of what they are, before one embarks on a coding project, let alone making time estimates for a manager. Software development is about the tradeoff between development time and application specificity. VB is a something of a general-purpose tool and it's good to be warned about the things that are hard to do with it.

Hardcore Visual Basic for Adults

A book that could well end up as a door stop waiting for you to be ready to read it. In the meantime a CD full of Type Library's and source code that can with little or no tweeking be used in your own apps. Put 1% of Bruce's book into practice and you will be a better programmer for it. With a deeper understanding of Windows and Visual Basic, classes defined and discussed in the book and supplied(CD) open up a wealth of answers and understanding. Look at any VB news group, Browsing files, API calls, String handling are all common questions and a just a few of the items that you will become quite expert in, and look back at those news groups with a knowing grin, if only they knew of Hardcore Visual Basic.

Invaluable resource for serious VB programmers

This is a book for people who consider themselves accomplished Visual Basic programmers. It is chock full of great ideas and concepts. To me, programming is a war of ideas. There are as many great ideas in a single chapter of Hardcore VB as in most other entire books on VB. This will equip you well for that "war of ideas".This book is humorous, and the author imparts a great deal of knowledge at the same time. This is one of the best VB books ever, and is head and shoulders above the rest. I highly recommend this book to ALL my students.