Apress - Beginning VB 2008 From Novice to Professional

The first computer programming book I read was titled Programming Windows 3.0 by Charles Petzold. This was around the time when Microsoft Windows 3.0 (circa 1992) once and for all showed the industry that Microsoft was a company with a future. Writing code for Windows back then was complicated by many things: lack of documentation, 16-bit architecture, and the necessity of buying a compiler separate from the software development kit (SDK). Charles’s book tied everything together and solved the problem of how to write a program for Windows. Now the problems are quite the opposite: we have too much documentation, we have 64-bit architectures, and everything including the kitchen sink is thrown into a development environment.

Now we need to figure out what we actually need. We have too many options—too many ways to solve the same problem. What I am trying to do with this book is the same thing that Charles did for me when I first started out, and that was to help me figure out what I needed to write code.

This book is about explaining the Visual Basic programming language in the context of solving problems. Visual Basic has become a sophisticated programming language that can achieve many goals, but you are left wondering what techniques to use when. This book is here to answer your questions.

This book is not a reference to all of the features of the Visual Basic programming language. I don’t explain the esoteric Visual Basic features. I stick to the Visual Basic programming features that you will use day in and day out. That does not mean that you will be missing certain Visual Basic programming language constructs, because I have covered all of the major features. To get the full benefit of this book, I suggest that you do the exercises at the end of the chapters. The answers are available on the Apress web site (http://www.apress.com), and you can cheat and not do the exercises, but I advise against that.

If you are a beginning programmer who has no clue about Visual Basic, and you read this book and do the exercises, I believe that you will be a solid and knowledgeable Visual Basic programmer by the end of the book. If that sounds like a big promise, well, yes it is. The chapter text is intended to get you acquainted with the Visual Basic programming language and how to apply its features. The exercises are intended to make sure you actually understand the Visual Basic programming language and its features.

The chapter exercises are challenging. They cannot be solved within a few minutes. In fact, when I did all of the exercises, it took me five working-hour days to do all of them!

If you have any questions, such as, “So what was he trying to get at with that exercise?” I am available on Skype with the user ID christianhgross. Please don’t just ring me. First chat using text, and if necessary, we can have a voice conversation. Also, you can send e-mail to me at christianhgross@gmail.com.

Thanks and good luck.