The magazine of the Melbourne PC User Group Seeing the Basics: Do you want to be certified? Tony Stevenson

Two VB books worth reading

This month we'll take a short break from the "More interesting facts about VB" series which has been running for the last few months. Instead, we'll look at a couple of Visual Basic books you might consider adding to your VB library, either at home or at work.

Becoming a Microsoft Certified Professional

The first book, Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer Visual Basic 5.0 Exam Guide, has been specifically written to help you pass the "Developing Applications with Microsoft Visual Basic 5.0 Exam".

If you're a professional VB programmer or trainer, you may find a certification like this is a prerequisite for obtaining that new job you want, or for advancing your career within the organisation for which you're currrently working. It may also give you the leverage you need to successfully negotiate a pay rise.

However, there are other intangible benefits that, while more difficult to explicitly measure, are no less important. For example, being certified gives you an increased confidence in your own VB ability. And it also provides you with extra credibility when dealing with clients and customers, both current and future ones.

Alternatively, the book can be used successfully by anyone who wants to obtain a solid background and understanding of one of the most exciting languages ever devised.

The book consists of 3 parts.

The first part looks at the design issues involved in programming with VB. The second section focuses on how to code applications, and the last part discusses what's involved in debugging, testing, and distributing a VB application.

Also included on the companion CD-ROMs are a series of "Lab Exercises". These allow you to put into practice the theory and concepts which have been covered in the book.

The book concludes with more than ten appendices. In here, you'll find information ranging from a certification checklist, which explains everything about the certification process, through to a series of testing tips, which provides handy advice about the approach to take when actually sitting the VB 5.0 exam.

Verdict

Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer Visual Basic 5.0 Exam Guide is ideally suited to those programmers who are serious about their VB, and who are looking for a way of demonstrating their knowledge and practical use of the language. It's advisable to read and study the contents of this book before attempting the VB certification exam.

If you're a hobby programmer, or just starting out with the language, there are other VB books on the market more suitable for your needs.

How do you do that?

The second book, Visual Basic 5 How-To, is the latest edition of the popular Visual Basic How-To series.

If you've been following the development of Visual Basic from its first release, you'll be aware of how powerful the current version of the language is. And with this book, you can explore VB 5.0's new features, and learn how to take maximum advantage of them.

Just some of the topics discussed include object and class fundamentals, ActiveX controls, Internet integration, the Win32 API (Application Programming Interface), Windows Socket programming, and application performance. And one chapter has been especially written for developers wanting to build logo-compliant applications (these are applications that have been certified to display the Designed for Microsoft Windows NT and Windows 95 logo).

The book consists of a collection of self-contained "How-To" projects. Examples of these range from how to integrate the Open Common Dialog into an application through to how to add and delete records using bound controls. More ambitious VB programmers will want to investigate those projects that demonstrate how to use the Repository, use Visual SourceSafe, build an Add-In, and create a Wizard.

And for convenience, the companion CD-ROM contains the required code, forms, bitmaps, and anything else needed for each "How-To". In all, there are 56 projects that can be run directly from the CD-ROM. However, if you want to make changes to a project, it has to be copied to your hard disk drive first. I would recommend this because then you can experiment with the project, and try out some of your own variations to the code.

To make the book even easier to use, each of the projects has been labelled with a degree of complexity--easy, intermediate, or advanced. This means that no matter what your current VB expertise is, you'll be able to quickly find a suitable starting out point.

Verdict

If you want to develop a comprehensive working knowledge of VB, this book has a lot to offer. In fact, it really belongs on the programming bookshelf of anyone who loves working with VB.

It has been well-written, and uses plenty of screen shots and tables to eliminate any confusion. And the steps in each project have been clearly labelled, and set out in a logical manner.

When read through sequentially, Visual Basic 5 How-To is an excellent book for progressively building up your VB knowledge. Alternatively, its layout means you can tackle just those "How-To" projects which are currently relevant to what you're doing. You can then come back at a later stage to study the rest of them.

You'll also find it useful for getting out of tricky programming situations, which sometimes happens, regardless of how experienced you are with the language.

Reprinted from the May 1998 issue of PC Update, the magazine of Melbourne PC User Group, Australia

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