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 | Visual Basic 2005 Cookbook: Solutions for VB 2005 Programmers (Cookbooks (O'Reilly)) Tim Patrick Date: 2006-09-01 — Book Rating: |
There are a many, many reference books out there. Some are good, and some are not. Most are arranged in the "standard" way. They contain one or more chapters about each of their chosen topics. Readers are expected to read these chapters in order to learn what they need. This book, however, is a bit different. It presents hundreds of "recipes", each solving a real-world problem. Some "recipes" are less than a page long, while others span many pages. The cool part is this: most of these recipes stand on their own. You don't have to read them in order. You can choose the recipe that corresponds to your particular need, read it, and apply it to your own program. Sweet.
The real worth of such a book lies in the quality of the recipes. Having hundreds of recipes available does one no good unless those recipes are actually used. I have to admit that at first I was skeptical. The first recipes were well beneath my skill level. The topics were explained well, but they were still very basic. The recipes became more interesting as I progressed through the book. Things got really interesting when I reached the chapter on graphics. From then on, I was sold.
Of course, those first chapters weren't interesting to me because I already knew the material. My son, who is very much a beginning programmer, was a different story. I asked him to read the first recipe and to write the example program. He found it quite interesting and helpful. In fact, this is the first book that I've found that he will actually read. That, of course, makes this book much more useful than all of the others.
I gave this book four stars instead of five for one reason; object disposal. All throughout the book, the authors show how to use objects that should be disposed. They don't, however, show you how to do this until halfway through chapter 14. Because the independent nature of these recipes, it's possible that someone might never read chapter 14. Those people might think that they are writing good code, but they would be wrong.
So, go buy this book, and don't forget to read chapter 14.
