Slashdot Mirror
Visual Basic 2005 Jumpstart
Graeme Williams writes "The tag line for Visual Basic Jumpstart is, 'Make Your Move Now from VB 6 to VB 2005', but the book also includes introductory and summary material rather than staying focused on VB 6 users. The book has a few good examples and some useful information about Visual Basic 2005, but the information, including links to the Internet, doesn't seem complete or up-to-date. This book isn't the help you need." Read the rest of Graeme's review.
Visual Basic 2005 Jumpstart
author
Wei-Meng Lee
pages
xiv + 197
publisher
O'Reilly Media
rating
5
reviewer
Graeme Williams
ISBN
0-596-10071-X
summary
A useful but flawed snapshot of Visual Basic 2005 without a clear audience
My current (small) applications are in Access and Visual Basic for Applications rather than VB 6, but with that caveat I'm part of the audience for this book, since I'm actively considering moving them to Visual Basic 2005. I want to like this book more than I do. Part of my confusion is that all of the chapters are useful, but I don't think they're useful to the same people.
I have no idea who the audience is for Chapter 2, "Programming with Visual Basic". Some of the information is useful and relevant, with specifics on differences between VB6 and VB2005, but some of it just seems plain silly: "Just as in VB 6, in VB 2005, you make decisions using the If-Then-Else construct". The wording is sometimes odd, too. The fact that parentheses in function calls are now mandatory in VB 2005 is explained backwards: "VB 6 Tip: In VB 6, you can call the PrintMessage subroutine without using parentheses to enclose the parameter list." The chapter could have been collapsed into a very clear and not very large table giving the differences between VB 6 and VB 2005.
In VB 2005, Microsoft has introduced a new bag of functions under the My. namespace. It's not a very big bag – it feels like the product manager wrote down the first four or five functions he thought of. For example, My.Computer.Network contains just five elements: IsAvailable, DownloadFile, UploadFile, Ping, and the NetworkAvailabilityChanged event. Jumpstart describes it as " ... one of the most useful and unique additions to VB 2005 ... The aim of the My namespace is to provide direct access to commonly used libraries in the .NET framework that were previously difficult to access." I'm sorry, that just sounds too much like a press release.
If you're really interested in the status of a network interface, for example, you need to look in the 30+ classes in the System.Net.NetworkInformation namespace. But this is not included in the list of "some other useful namespaces in the .NET framework" (p61). Also, Example 4-3 (p117) uses the System.Net.HttpWebRequest and System.Net.HttpWebResponse classes to download an image, not any of the classes mentioned in Chapter 3.
On the face of it, Chapter 3, "Putting Object-Oriented Programming to Work", provides a very clear and thorough introduction to the object-oriented programming constructs in VB 2005. Unfortunately, it's not complete. Microsoft has a summary of "Object-Oriented Programming for Visual Basic 6.0 Users" which points out that the Binary Compatibility option from VB6 is no longer supported in VB 2005, but this is not mentioned in Jumpstart.
If you're moving from VB6 to VB2005, you're also moving to NET 2.0, but the book has only the most cursory introduction to NET 2.0. Part of the problem is that the book needs to be either more or less reliant on online information. If it was less reliant on online information, it would be more useful as a stand-alone resource. If it was more thoroughly linked to the estimable resources at Microsoft.com, it would be more complete and up-to-date.
Jumpstart mentions two MSDN Help Topics: "Programming Element Support Changes Summary" and "Help for Visual Basic 6.0 Users". The former is very useful, perhaps more useful than found in this book, although it's organized in MSDN's one fact per page style. The latter can only be found via Google, since it is now part of MSDN2, the "new MSDN" for Visual Studio 2005 and SQL Server 2005. MSDN2 is not mentioned in the book, nor is VBRun, the Visual Basic 6.0 Resource Center, which has a boatload of information on moving to VB 2005.
The database application in Chapter 4, "Developing a Windows Application" is useful and clearly presented. It's a nice example of the new SplitContainer control. But it's no better than examples in other introductions to Visual Basic, and it's a little hard to see how it's suited to the stated purpose of this book – of introducing developers with an existing Visual Basic 6 code base to Visual Basic 2005.
The term "jumpstart" cuts both ways. The goal of the book is to give VB6 programmers a rapid introduction to Visual Basic 2005. But the book itself was published rapidly – before Visual Basic 2005 was released – and some of that speed shows. On page 126, Jumpstart instructs you how to configure Windows XP to run IIS, but on page 139 points out that this isn't possible in XP Home.
Chapter 5, "Building Web Applications", explains that Visual Studio includes its own web server, so you don't need to run IIS, but the fact that Visual Basic 2005 Express doesn't include this feature is mentioned only in the preface (page xi). To provide IIS, you need either Windows XP Professional, or Visual Studio Standard or above, or Visual Web Developer 2005 Express. Wouldn't it make sense to explain the various combinations of operating systems and Visual Studio editions in one place, at the beginning of the chapter where they're relevant?
I'm not an ASP programmer, but I feel as though the 35 pages devoted to ASP probably aren't enough to give the topic a decent introduction, which perhaps deserves a separate book. For example, authentication is covered in just three short paragraphs. The 35 pages could have been devoted to something more central to the topic, such as more details on .NET 2.0. Obviously, there are other books on .NET 2.0, but while you can use Visual Basic 2005 without ASP, you can't use it without .NET 2.0.
If we take the book's tagline seriously, Chapter 6, "Moving from VB 6 to to VB 2005", should be the core of book, but it seems like more of an afterthought. Much of the content is from Artinsoft. Rather than reading about about it third-hand in this book, or second-hand on MSDN, I recommend you go to the the Artinsoft web site, where they have plenty of information for download.
It's hard to put a numerical rating on a book like this, which doesn't seem focused or particularly thorough, but still contains a lot of useful information. The book could have been better if it had been linked more systematically to Microsoft's online resources. It might have seemed better if the audience had been clearer. A rating of 5 ("Neither terrible nor terribly good") seems about right. By all means buy the book if you think it will be worth the money to have the information and examples in book form. Just don't expect too much."
You can purchase Visual Basic 2005 Jumpstart from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page
My current (small) applications are in Access and Visual Basic for Applications rather than VB 6, but with that caveat I'm part of the audience for this book, since I'm actively considering moving them to Visual Basic 2005. I want to like this book more than I do. Part of my confusion is that all of the chapters are useful, but I don't think they're useful to the same people.
I have no idea who the audience is for Chapter 2, "Programming with Visual Basic". Some of the information is useful and relevant, with specifics on differences between VB6 and VB2005, but some of it just seems plain silly: "Just as in VB 6, in VB 2005, you make decisions using the If-Then-Else construct". The wording is sometimes odd, too. The fact that parentheses in function calls are now mandatory in VB 2005 is explained backwards: "VB 6 Tip: In VB 6, you can call the PrintMessage subroutine without using parentheses to enclose the parameter list." The chapter could have been collapsed into a very clear and not very large table giving the differences between VB 6 and VB 2005.
In VB 2005, Microsoft has introduced a new bag of functions under the My. namespace. It's not a very big bag – it feels like the product manager wrote down the first four or five functions he thought of. For example, My.Computer.Network contains just five elements: IsAvailable, DownloadFile, UploadFile, Ping, and the NetworkAvailabilityChanged event. Jumpstart describes it as " ... one of the most useful and unique additions to VB 2005 ... The aim of the My namespace is to provide direct access to commonly used libraries in the .NET framework that were previously difficult to access." I'm sorry, that just sounds too much like a press release.
If you're really interested in the status of a network interface, for example, you need to look in the 30+ classes in the System.Net.NetworkInformation namespace. But this is not included in the list of "some other useful namespaces in the .NET framework" (p61). Also, Example 4-3 (p117) uses the System.Net.HttpWebRequest and System.Net.HttpWebResponse classes to download an image, not any of the classes mentioned in Chapter 3.
On the face of it, Chapter 3, "Putting Object-Oriented Programming to Work", provides a very clear and thorough introduction to the object-oriented programming constructs in VB 2005. Unfortunately, it's not complete. Microsoft has a summary of "Object-Oriented Programming for Visual Basic 6.0 Users" which points out that the Binary Compatibility option from VB6 is no longer supported in VB 2005, but this is not mentioned in Jumpstart.
If you're moving from VB6 to VB2005, you're also moving to NET 2.0, but the book has only the most cursory introduction to NET 2.0. Part of the problem is that the book needs to be either more or less reliant on online information. If it was less reliant on online information, it would be more useful as a stand-alone resource. If it was more thoroughly linked to the estimable resources at Microsoft.com, it would be more complete and up-to-date.
Jumpstart mentions two MSDN Help Topics: "Programming Element Support Changes Summary" and "Help for Visual Basic 6.0 Users". The former is very useful, perhaps more useful than found in this book, although it's organized in MSDN's one fact per page style. The latter can only be found via Google, since it is now part of MSDN2, the "new MSDN" for Visual Studio 2005 and SQL Server 2005. MSDN2 is not mentioned in the book, nor is VBRun, the Visual Basic 6.0 Resource Center, which has a boatload of information on moving to VB 2005.
The database application in Chapter 4, "Developing a Windows Application" is useful and clearly presented. It's a nice example of the new SplitContainer control. But it's no better than examples in other introductions to Visual Basic, and it's a little hard to see how it's suited to the stated purpose of this book – of introducing developers with an existing Visual Basic 6 code base to Visual Basic 2005.
The term "jumpstart" cuts both ways. The goal of the book is to give VB6 programmers a rapid introduction to Visual Basic 2005. But the book itself was published rapidly – before Visual Basic 2005 was released – and some of that speed shows. On page 126, Jumpstart instructs you how to configure Windows XP to run IIS, but on page 139 points out that this isn't possible in XP Home.
Chapter 5, "Building Web Applications", explains that Visual Studio includes its own web server, so you don't need to run IIS, but the fact that Visual Basic 2005 Express doesn't include this feature is mentioned only in the preface (page xi). To provide IIS, you need either Windows XP Professional, or Visual Studio Standard or above, or Visual Web Developer 2005 Express. Wouldn't it make sense to explain the various combinations of operating systems and Visual Studio editions in one place, at the beginning of the chapter where they're relevant?
I'm not an ASP programmer, but I feel as though the 35 pages devoted to ASP probably aren't enough to give the topic a decent introduction, which perhaps deserves a separate book. For example, authentication is covered in just three short paragraphs. The 35 pages could have been devoted to something more central to the topic, such as more details on .NET 2.0. Obviously, there are other books on .NET 2.0, but while you can use Visual Basic 2005 without ASP, you can't use it without .NET 2.0.
If we take the book's tagline seriously, Chapter 6, "Moving from VB 6 to to VB 2005", should be the core of book, but it seems like more of an afterthought. Much of the content is from Artinsoft. Rather than reading about about it third-hand in this book, or second-hand on MSDN, I recommend you go to the the Artinsoft web site, where they have plenty of information for download.
It's hard to put a numerical rating on a book like this, which doesn't seem focused or particularly thorough, but still contains a lot of useful information. The book could have been better if it had been linked more systematically to Microsoft's online resources. It might have seemed better if the audience had been clearer. A rating of 5 ("Neither terrible nor terribly good") seems about right. By all means buy the book if you think it will be worth the money to have the information and examples in book form. Just don't expect too much."
You can purchase Visual Basic 2005 Jumpstart from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page
VB.Net is syntactically a lot different from classic VB. If you're going to make the switch, you might as well learn C#. Then you will also be familiar with C/C++ style coding.
Ditch the Dim!
Pick a subject you learned yourself hastily, then find a publisher known for editors unfamiliar enough with your subject to accept it as gospel because the manuscript is long and *looks* intelligent.
Look up Amazon reviews of Mortier's books on 3D design applications and you'll see almost the same reviews as above.
"Made up/misattributed quote that makes me look smart. I am on
I think that the book should start off by trying to explain to me WHY I should move from VB6 to VB2005. From everything I've read, there's little reason to make the jump. I've got probably a dozen, working, mission-critical VB6 apps right now, and I just don't see the point.
I don't respond to AC's.
...because at the rate Microsoft keeps coming up with new and incompatible versions of VB, it seems a foregone conclusion that by the time you absorb the book and have Made Your Move Now from VB 6 to VB 2005, it will be time to buy VB Jumpstart 2006: Make Your Move Now from VB 2005 to 2006, and then VB Jumpstart 2007, VB Jumpstart 2008, etc.
.NET profit.
For the lucky author, it gives a new meaning to the phrase
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
No such thing as a migration from VB6 to .NET. VB.NET is simply .NET with a VB-like syntax. Anything at all larger than a few lines is best rewritten from the beginning.
.NET, it'll end up being a lot more effort than just writing it from scratch.
IMO, it's pointless to try to convert a VB6 program to
This is the risk you take when coding using closed tools. There's no more support for VB6, and no real migration path.
I love all the titles the VB authors use for their "insights" into this decrepit language. Like "VB Unleashed!" as if VB is some rabid animal, or "Hidden VB secrets" just dug up from King Tuts tomb.
I see a nice spot on my bookshelf for this book, beside my kids "Jumpstart Toddlers" CD's.
VB is the whipping boy of Microsoft. Every iteration changes the language in some crazy way. I started pre-VB, but for the VB line, I started at VB1.0. I've watched it "grow" (I perfer mutate) over the years. I now still do about 90% VB. But I have tired of the language changing every few years. I've fallen in love with Python. It is cross-platform and easier. The only thing needed is a good GUI. I prefer Qt, (which is GPL or commercial). The effort of supporting more than windows in one platform is trivial with python, which opens up the MacOSX market (and linux too.)
Even if you don't need crossplatform, Python has all that COM support and is highly integrated into the Windows OS. To me, it is worth my time to learn python because the languages changes very little. It also is 'cleaner'.
Ruby fans don't flame me. I know the two are close, but I can only recommend what I have used extensively.
Slashdot's rate-of-post filter: Preventing you from posting too many great ideas at once.
There are no crappy languages, but there are a lot of crappy programmers.
Steve's Computer Service, Hobbs, NM
Why do people use it?
Because it works. It is simple. It gets the job done fast.
It works most effectively for smallish one-off projects and, I admit, there are better tools to use for anything that requires a software engineering effort, but VB fills a lot of needs.
The "sister" language, VBA, is ideal for vendors who want to provide rich, user-accessible scripting interface to their hardware or software products.
Because vbscript works with excel, word, access - learning vb gets you to work with almost every microsoft product from asp server scripting to making vb6 windows applications to client side vbscript coding to office to scripting for other apps.
It gets the job done a lot of times coz you have 1 week to process this data or 1 week to make a quick system for the local auction.
Also, the damn thing's everywhere. Suppose you have some dullish office data handling task. The sort of thing your average white-collar drone will spend several days working on in Excel, click, copy, paste, add up, repeat...
You're smarter than that. You know that this kind of repetitive shite is best done by a computer. Very well... but you aren't in the IT department, you don't have admin rights to install anything, and God help you if you download and run anything not authorised and signed off on by the Proper Authorities after at least seventeen two-hour meetings about it.
And yet here is VBA. Hiding just under the surface of every one of these mundane office apps you use every day. OK... for a = 1 to lots, sht.Cells(a,1), adodb.recordset, this, that, the other, output to here... done!
If you're a geek in the wilderness, VBA's a godsend. Or perhaps a deal with Mephistopheles... either way, it gets results :-)
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.