Review: Sams Teach Yourself Visual Basic 2008 in 24 Hours
Ian Waugh gets to grips with Visual Basic with this great new book from Sams
| Product | Teach Yourself Visual basic 2008 in 24 hours |
|---|---|
| Company | Sams |
| Web | www.samspublishing.com |
| Price | $34.99 £24.99 |
| We like | An excellent, well-written guide and easy to follow |
| We don't like | A few quite technical topics creep in but don't let these throw you from the path |
| Rating | 9/10 |
| Requirements |
Back in the day of 8-bit computers, most owners were enthusiasts and many did some programming in Basic. It wasn't too difficult to learn and the main restrictions were the speed it would run at and running out of a generous 32K of memory!
How it's changed! Microsoft's modern Visual Basic is barely recognisable and has expanded enormously in scope and depth - and complexity. But to help cope with the added layers, Visual Studio, the software you write Basic program in, includes many aids including Intellisense which completes keywords and helps with syntax.
But you still need some guidance, certainly to get started. That's where Teach Yourself Visual Basic 2008 in 24 Hours come sin. Like other '24 Hours' books, it contains 24 chapters, each covering an aspect of the subject.
Chapter 1 starts you programming straight away. As well as running through the basic principles of Visual Basic, you actually create a small program which you build throughout the book into a Picture Viewer.
Subsequent chapters introduce you to Objects, Properties and Collections, and Events. There are chapters on building a user interface, creating Forms and working with Controls to produce various kinds of text and list boxes. You also see how easy it is to add Menus and Toolbars.
The book progresses smoothly, Visual Studio often providing much of the code and you may be surprised by how little code you actually have to write yourself, certainly for creating common features.
You're into Hour 10 before you tackle Code Modules, Procedures. Then it's on to Data Types, Variables, Arrays, performing arithmetic functions, string manipulation, loops and, of course, debugging your code.
That covers the, er, basics, of the language but, of course, there are many other topics, some quite advanced, that you may need, even if only occasionally.
There's a short chapter on Classes (which you may be able to skim through (Ed: Oh, no, you don't!)), and others on creating Message Boxes, graphics, file operations, working with text files, and the Registry. There's also a chapter on databases, automation (using objects from another application).
The book concludes by showing how to use ClickOnce to create publishable programs, and a short discussion of .NET and Common Language Runtime.
Some of the topics are quite advanced as Visual Basic is only part of a bigger programming picture. However, the book, sensibly, concentrates on Visual Basic and doesn't confuse the subject (too much) with external references.
If you follow the book you will certainly have a good grasp of Visual basic and be able to tackle your own projects in a wide range of areas. Some subjects such as graphics and serious databases are, perhaps, best not served by Basic but you will be able to incorporate them into your projects, certainly in a modest way.
Conclusion
Whether or not Basic is still the easiest programming language to learn may be debatable but Teach Yourself Visual Basic 2008 in 24 Hours will get you up and running in, er, 24 lessons. And at the end you'll have a working Picture Viewer program that you can expand on, and the knowledge and ability to create your own software.
