Monday, May 7, 2001		Book Review

Know Visual Basic 6.0

WRITTEN in a straight everyday language, the book takes us from the shallow to the deep end of the most popular development tool for desktop applications. This tool is for front-end programming and is part of Microsoft’s Visual Studio. It targets those who are new to application development and does not contain too much technical stuff.

The topics covered give enough material to make the reader understand Visual Basic (VB) programming. It includes small, easy-to-do programming with real-life examples.

The 456 pages are divided into three parts. Part One, which takes up 17 chapters, gives us an introduction to Visual Basic and its features. Also included are the controls, properties, events and methods of the language. One gains an insight into creating an application, the how and where of declaring variables, and writing code for procedures and functions. Basic programming concepts like loops, ‘if...’ statements, and ‘select case,’ that are generally used in making almost every program, are covered very well and in a lucid language.

For a deep knowledge of VB, Part One gives an introduction and tells how to use additional controls available in the language. It also describes the use of ‘activeX data objects’ and the distribution of application and data reports. Connectivity to the backend tools is a major feature of any software. The issue of connectivity starts from the introduction of the concept of backend tools and the methods available.

Part Two covers the advanced level of VB programming. It tells what is ‘activeX’ and why is it important and how to use it in applications.

In the last part of the book, Part Three, there is a chapter "An Invoicing Program," which is a real-life application program. It provides a template for developing a complete application and makes the reader use almost all controls, connectivity, tools and programming that have been explained in the preceeding chapters.

The emphasis of the book is on practice. One can find a lot of exercises given at the end each chapter, which test the learner’s skills. At places, where necessary, it provides suggestions to improve code readability, user interface design and many other topics are covered to write lines of code correctly.

The writer has taken the help of diagrams at various places to explain the fundamentals of programming, which makes it easier to understand what is happening in a program. There is also a summary at the end of every chapter for a revision.

While it is a good book for those who want to understand and learn application programming using Visual Basic 6.0, it does not cover much of the advanced part of programming. It is not for those who already have knowledge of VB. This is also not a book for those who are preparing for the examinations of MCP or MCSD. However, for beginners it is a well-written book that covers all the essentials of VB.

— Amit Puri