Programming with Microsoft Visual Basic 6.0

by Diane Zak

This title is designed for a beginning programming course. It uses Visual Basic 6.0 to teach programming concepts. This market-leading book has distinguished itself from other Windows books because of... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0760010714
• ISBN13: 9780760010716
• Release Date: December 1998
• Publisher: Course Technology
• Length: 862 Pages
• Weight: 4.05 lbs.

Customer Reviews

I've read a lot of VB books, but this one is the best so far

Programming With Microsoft Visual Basic 6.0 by Diane Zak is probably one of the best beginner programming books I have come across. It is easy to read and follow, which for beginners is an important feature to take into consideration. A nice extension to the book is that the sample code for the tutorials are available via download from their web site so if you seem to get stuck in an area more than likely they have some form or another of that code working so you can at least see what it is supposed to do. The only group I would not recommend this book to is intermediate/advanced VB programmers because the book does move a little slower than others, and it can become repetitious by time you get to the 3rd lesson of a tutorial. After nearly completing this book I can see why my University would select this book.

Too Good To Be True... All New VB Programmers Must Own This

Right from the start, I'd like to say that this book is for absolute beginners. If you've already written a VB program or two, or if you've learned BASIC (any of its incarnations) before, then this book is NOT for you. You'd find this book too slow or repetitive. BUT if you've never written a single line of code and plan to learn VB all by yourself, then, boy, you're in for a treat. Yes, you will learn a good deal of VB with this book.This book is absolutely superb for anyone who's just starting out on VB programming. The problems that plague most (if not all) VB beginner books, such as having truckloads of typos, confused and confusing writing, illogical topic sequences, jumping too deep too quickly etc etc are completely absent from this text. It's one of those rare text beginners can only dream about - it's truly step-by-step in every sense of the word. It tells you, without any ambiguity, how to write programs correctly right from the start. It imbues in you the necessary and good habits of writing programs. I find this book a far superior beginner text compared with John Smiley's "Learn to Program VB6". You get to learn a lot more programming syntax and techniques from Diane, and you don't waste time reading John Smiley's unnecessary and nonsensical fiction. The exercises included with Smiley's book are just recaps of the chapter. But with Diane's book, you get to work on some programming problems (and you get a lot of them) at the back of each chapter. It's obvious which is the better approach.This book is so good, you just got to have it. I defy anyone working conscientiously through this book's numerous exercises come away confused about ANY topic that the book covered. Diane's been extremely painstaking and thoughtful about every area she covered. She looked at potential programming pitfalls from the beginner's point of view. Knowing that new programmers tend to forget information, she took pain to reinforce concepts, sometimes through repetition, sometimes through exercises. You'd never, ever feel lost in her company. Because it's such a hands-on book, you can't read this book on your bed. You have to read it with the PC on and the VB booted up.This is truly a masterful and unique piece of work. I've read a large quantity of vb literature. The way I see it, as far as book authoring for new vb programmers is concerned, Diane has no peer.

Makes VB a piece of cake!

I am super-impressed with this book! I'm about to begin a 2-year web development program at Spokane Community College, and with 6 weeks 'till my classes start I decided to pick up the textbook for the Intro to Visual Basic course and get a head start. I've never done any programming before. It has only been 2 weeks and I'm already halfway through what the course covers. This book is great! I may very well get through the entire book before classes start, and the course doesn't even cover the whole book!The material is presented so clearly that a child could learn to program with this book. The author uses a systematic, step-by-step appproach, and hands-on all the way through, so you're actually programming simple applications right away. I'm actually having fun! Everything is presented in lessons, just like a class. At the end of each lesson are questions and exercises. Very thorough. Then, at the end of every third lesson is a debugging exercise (or 2, or 3) . But a great presentation & clear explanation aren't enough when it comes to learning something like computer programming. That's why I find the exercises very valuable, since practice is the only way to actually learn anything. The exercises are plentiful. Of course, anyone who doesn't want or need 'em can skip 'em.And belive it or not, the book seems to be error-free. And although the approach is at first one of spoon-feeding, as the lessons progress you get to think for yourself more and more, and she throws in a challenge here and there. The CD is great too. Every lesson incorporates applications which are found on the CD. So it's imperative that the CD work, and it does. The only problem I had was when I first loaded everything onto my system there was a file which was "missing" which was necessary for everything to run. It took me a while to hunt it down, but it was there. I just moved it around till it was where it needed to be for the system to find it. Apparently it somehow got placed in the wrong folder on the CD, so the program was looking for it on another path. Once I moved it, everything was cool.Oh, by the way, the CD contains Microsoft VB 6.0. It's a trimmed version, but I understand it will do about 80-90% of VBs full capabilities.In conclusion, this is NOT a book for someone with a programming project at work that they need to do fast and just want a quick & dirty primer. This book is for people who actually want to LEARN the VB programming tools and language. It was obviously designed as a classroom textbook, but Diane Zak has written the thing so carefully, and the presentation is so well thought out that she has inadvertantly eliminated the need for an instructor. I'm not in the habit of telling others what to do, but if you're a beginner and want to learn Visual Basic, you'll be making a big mistake if you pass this one up.

Best textbook I've ever used.

Visual Basic is my first programming language and I found this book to be an excellent guide. The author teaches the material extremely well and she succinctly repeats important bits of information when that information is crucial to you understanding the current material. This is very useful because it prevents readers from feeling "lost" or frustrated. The book is also very thorough, explaining the reasons behind what you are learning. Another great thing about this book is that it prevents you from feeling overwhelmed by the large task of learning Visual Basic by "chunking" the information into small manageable pieces for learning. The book has 10 tutorials, each tutorial has 3 lessons, with examples, followed by multiple choice, exercises and discovery lessons. Next time I buy a computer book, I will first check if Diane Zak has written a book in the area that I am interested in. If she has, then I will buy that book. She is an excellent author. I guess that is why our university has been using books written by Diane Zak for a few years now.

The best beginners book to Visual Basic programming!

I have taught about five classes to beginning programmers using the previous version of this book. It is outstanding. The students absolutely love this book and find it extremely easy to learn from. It has a very easy to follow step by step approach. Although it makes a great textbook, it is so self explanatory that it also would be great for someone trying to learn on their own. It won't teach everything you might eventually want to know about Visual Basic. But, it will get you an excellent start. If you succesfully complete this book, you should move on to other VB books to get more details. The Deitel & Deitel book calld Visual Basic 6: How To Program is a great choice. It is a bit advanced for first time programmers, but if you do this book first, the Deitel book will make a lot more sense and teach you a lot more details. In summary, this is the best and easiest way to learn Visual Basic for beginning programmers.