Review of Microsoft VBScript Professional Projects (Paperback)

There just are not that many really good VBScript books out there. And there are even fewer well written VBScript books that target power users, system admins and advanced readers. Well, this book is one of them. It provides a quick review of VBScript (for those that need a primer or a quick overview) and then procedes to demonstrate how to use VBScript to tackle several different projects. This approach provides a great balance between theory and practical hands-on application.

Product Description
Microsoft's VBScript, a simplified version of VisualBasic, is a powerful, easy-to-learn tool that can add interaction toWeb pages. VBScript Professional Projects distinguishes itself fromthe competition by being the only book to offer a project-basedapproach for higher-end users and to provide coverage of VBScript'sapplicability to both Web and WSH scripting. It is the ideal guide forVBA and Visual Basic programmers who wish to expand their programmingcapabilities using a scripting language.

About the Author
Jerry Lee Ford, Jr. is an author, educator, and IT professional with over 13 years experience in information technology.He is a Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer and has also earned Microsoft's MCP & MCP+Internet certification.He holds a master's degree in Business Administration and has been a part-time IT instructor for five years.Jerry is the author of nine books, including "Microsoft Windows Shell Scripting and WSH Administrator's Guide" (ISBN: 1931841268).He lives in Richmond, Virginia with his wife and sons.

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Review of MCSD Guide to Developing Desktop Applications Using Microsoft Visual Basic 6.0: Advanced Topics (Mcse & Mcsd Series) (Paperback)

I am Certified in VB 5.0 and am close to taking the VB 6.0 test. I have alot to learn, but this book is not for the beginner. I believe this book to be the best overall book for preparing for certification. I read theversion 5 of this book and could not wait to read this one also. I will beteaching VB again in the Spring of 2000. I used the Diane Zak book fromCourse Technology for the Intro to VB. I would like to use this book alsofor the advancedclass in VB. I can not say enough good about this book.With the right teacher, this book would be dynamite. I would like to getour college to switch to this book for the advance classes. I would startin chapter 1 and cover the entire book. I think there is enough materialher for 2 quarters. I think that the topics are relevant and not justadvanced. I can understand people who may not like this book. This book isnot the easiest to read but I do not want an easy book. Number of pagesread don't count on certification - only if you know the material. If youwant an easier book to read, there are plenty. I recommend this bookhighly to anyone who will listen. This book also has a 'Teaching Tools' CDthat is available from the publisher for an extra cost. This extra CD ispretty neat - it has ready made tests for students, tests that can be puton a network and administrated online, and teaching notes, over heads, andmore. Great resource. Even if you are not going to teach, theinstructor's notes are a great summary of the points you need to know foryour certification.This book and extra CD is an awesome combination.Not for the faint of heart.

Product Description
This Microsoft-approved title prepares individuals for the "Designing and Implementing Desktop Applications with Microsoft Visual Basic 6.0 Certification Exam"(# 70-176).This book covers all new features of Visual Basic 6.0, including the Install Wizard, HTML Help, Deployment Wizard, and all new and revised controls. It also includes topics not required for the exam but necessary for effective solution development.

About the Author
Michael Ekedahl has worked in the technology field for nearly 20 years. He taught Visual Basic, Internet development, and other programming topics at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas for 15 years. Michael was also the lead technical analyst for the National Supercomputing Center for Energy and the Environment at UNLV. He also developed geophysical software sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy. Presently, Michael teaches Visual Basic and advanced programming topics at the University of Nevada, Reno, and writes books for Thomson Course Technology.

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Review of Microsoft Visual Basic .NET Professional Projects (Paperback)

Be sure that there is nothing professional about this book. It is certainly one of the worst out there. The applications you build in the book are based on code of the lowest quality. Nothing object oriented here. It has nothing to offer to the intermediate user and above and will introduce the beginner to some very bad programming habbits.

Don't be fooled that it 'll let you build a full video kiosk application. The intermediate could do with no effort and the beginner won't understand what and why, simply because it just throws totally basic code and explains nothing. Not even the SQL.

Then half of the content is of (the much ridiculus) style: "Now that we learned this, let's go and learn this"(end of section), next section: "in the previous section we learnd this, now let's go and learn this", or,"figure X shows ..." (figure) "as shown in figure X...". Irritating the least. I just adopts a "tell it to a ten years old" manner but actually says nothing usefull.

Bottom line: just don't buy.

Product Description
Learn how you can use Visual Basic.NET to accomplish real-world, professional tasks. Incorporating five hands-on projects, Microsoft Visual Basic .NET Professional Projects is your key to unlocking the power of Visual Basic .NET. Use the projects to enhance your skills as you upgrade a Visual Basic application to Visual Basic .NET and create a mobile Web application. Each project focuses on a specific VB.NET concept and is based on a real-world situation. You will be able to use the skills that you develop throughout the book to modify the projects as needed to fit your professional needs.

About the Author
Pooja Bembey is an instructional designer for NIIT Ltd.In the KSB division, Pooja has had the opportunity to work on varied technical assignments involving designing, developing, testing, and implementing Instructor-Led, Web-based, and Classroom-based training courses.She has developed courses in areas such as Forte for Java, StarOffice, Linux, and Solaris.She has also developed courses on the Sun Fire Midframe range of servers.

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Review of Software Development on a Leash (Expert's Voice) (Paperback)

I have mixed feelings about this book. The main idea of it (as far as I understand) is achieving high degree of reuse by separating the software from its concrete application and expressing this application in "structural and behavioral metadata". Moreover, in your application, you must get rid of any dependecties on things that you do not control by wrapping it in your software layer and exposing it to the application as very abstract ("metamorphic") object model. The author provides some interesting examples for this and presents the basic building blocks of a software framework built around these ideas. As much as it might sound compelling this concept is not really new. What is worse is that methods and advice presented in the book are sometimes simply wrong or often have serious drawbacks which the author doesn't talk about.

For example the author really hates strong typing and recommends reducing the interface of _all_ your classes to just 3 members: "Item", "Ref" and "Action". This is bizarre. The view of strong typing as an enemy of the programmer is completely wrong; it was actually introduced to help control side-effects of changes to class interfaces. Another example is the virtual database layer the author proposes: while it is true that it lets the programmer switch the underlying database engine very easily it is based on relatively low-level SQL concepts and suffers from the least common denominator syndrome. I would say that for many, if not most, application a better way is to design a higher-level database abstraction layer that takes advantage of the engine capabilities. Usually it is not much more code and the performance difference might be enormous.

Finally there is the cost aspect. You cannot really adopt the method partially; either you are in or out. And you must really have almost unlimited resources to develop this kind of framework yourself. Which makes you think that it would be reasonable to get the framework developed by the author already. Which is just what the author wants and which is strongly reinforced with the last chapter of the book that literally sounds like a Ginzu knife sales pitch. Is it worth it? You have to decide yourself. For me the extreme programming advice: "Always build the simplest thing that works" has worked very well so far...

Product Description
<p><i>Software Development on a Leash</i> is designed as a roadmap for experienced developers and architects who are interested in implementing a turbocharged software development process that encourages reuse and innovation. Author David Birmingham's products have been successfully deployed in a variety of venues, including highly complex desktop environments, with rapid turnaround and high-intensity delivery deadlines.</p><p>This book contrasts the application-centric development approach to the architecture-centric development approach, introducing the concept of the <i>metamorphic superpattern</i>&emdash;the capability of a software program to dynamically adapt to changing application requirements without rebuilding the binary executable.</p><p>Birmingham invites the reader to deploy reusable structural and behavioral building blocks, along with some powerful frameworks to gain immediate traction in any setting. He includes a high-speed multidimensional toolkit to organize and deploy the building blocks, essentially weaving the application together at run-time rather than being hard-wired in program code.</p><p>Birmingham then ties the building blocks together with structural and behavioral metadata, allowing simple, interpreted macros to drive everything from database access, screen layouts, and many aspects of software development normally embedded directly into the software program&emdash;and reused! The rapid deployment effect this creates allows developers to perform simple surgical application changes or rapid, sweeping rework/enhancement&emdash;without changing compiled software.</p>

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