Simply Visual Basic 2005, Second Edition

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Simply Visual Basic 2005, Second Edition

I was reminded of old school days when I scanned through Simply Visual Basic 2005, Second Edition,another interesting book written by Dr. Harvey M.Deitel and Paul J. Deitel of Deitel & Associates, Inc. This is because thepages of the book look similar to a school textbook; the content is presentedin colorful pages with lots of illustrations and review questions. Unliketraditional books, Simply Visual Basic2005 explores the language with the help of several projects in the form oftutorials. The book doesn t teach you the fundamentals of Visual Basic 2005,but instead examines all the concepts in the form of projects. With the help ofthe projects discussed in the book, you ll be able to kick start yourdevelopment skills by either tweaking the discussed applications or developinga new project from scratch.

The book begins with a basic introduction to each conceptassociated with computers, the various languages, and a brief overview aboutvarious high-level languages, including a note about Structured Programming.Finally, the introduction concludes with a short summary about the drawingapplication. While Chapter 2 provides an overview about Visual Basic 2005Express Edition, Chapter 3 examines the development of a simple welcomeapplication. I was amazed to see how the authors examined the creation of asimple application in a step-by-step manner, illustrated with colorfulscreenshots.

The remaining tutorials demonstrate the creation ofvarious applications, such as inventory, wage calculator, dental payment, car paymentcalculator, class average, interest calculator, security panel, shipping time, fundraiser, craps game, flag quiz, student grades, shipping hub, cat and mouse painter,typing, screen scraping, ticket information, address book, check writer, and phonebook. The check-writer application will be useful for business people, as theycan instantly generate checks for their customers.

I found that although the wage-calculator application is coveredin tutorial 7, its enhancement is covered in tutorial 12, which is ratherincongruous. Similarly, I wonder why the authors covered the enhancement of thecar-payment-calculator application as the final tutorial when the calculator isfeatured earlier in tutorial 9. From my point of view, the content should bereorganized so readers can learn the concepts in a uniformly progressivemanner. I hope the publisher will rectify this in the next edition of the book.The final three tutorials examine the creation of a Web-based bookstoreapplication; this will be of great help for new developers. The authors firstprovide a basic introduction to Visual Web Developer 2005 Express, then examine the various tiers used for developing theapplication.

An interesting point to note is that each tutorialincludes at the end of each section several self-review questions, a summary, apoint-wise skills summary, a glossary of key terms covered in each tutorialwith a one-line explanation, GUI Design Guidelines, and a list of importantcontrols, events, properties, and methods. Moreover, the book contains a set ofexercises with relevant hints and screenshots at the end of each tutorial.

The book also includes five appendixes and a glossary ofimportant terms, which I m sure will be of great helpfor students and developers. It will be especially useful for instructors, asthey can instantly refer to the specific term while imparting training. Irecommend the authors provide in the next edition a tutorial about the creationof an ASP.NET-based knowledge base and help desk application.

I think Simply Visual Basic2005 is an effective resource for all levels of readers. The book wouldmake especially excellent courseware for computer training centers. Althoughthe price is high, the quality of the content and tutorials is impressive.

Anand Narayanaswamy

Rating:

Title: Simply Visual Basic 2005, Second Edition

Author: Dr.Harvey M. Deitel and Paul J. Deitel, Deitel & Associates, Inc.

Publisher:Prentice Hall

ISBN: 0-13-243862-3

Web Site: http://vig.prenhall.com/catalog/academic/product/0,1144,0132438623,00.html

Price: US$91.00

Page Count: 848