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Book:   Programming Visual Basic 2005
Subject:   Programming Visual Basic 2005
Date:   2005-12-06 12:44:11
From:   Gary Gibbons
Rating:  StarStarStarStarStar

I've been working through the first 2 chapters of this book for about a week, and although most of the information is fairly straight forward, there are some issues that do not make the cut with the cross over to the release version of VS/VB 2005.


The end of chapter 2 has the reader change button event handlers to deal with a collection of buttons. The idea being to choose a button relationship pragmatically, then open a new form with the data result via one event handler method -- a great idea --
unfortunately, this does not work cleanly (or as it is written).



The original click events presented in the text provide the desired results via their individual handlers, while the collection of buttons into one event handler does not. But as the author states: "having code nearly identical for 2 different methods should send a shudder down your spine" (chapter 2, sub sec 2.2.5).


Sure will, but this code seems to be lacking proper explanation, and fails to render the selected data, only posting from the 1st position of the data set.


OK, not so difficult to resolve, but for a newbie? Have fun.


In spite of good information, this book is not for newbies or beginners. As a matter of fact, as a tutorial this book should be aimed at intermediate level coders just opening the new VS 2005 IDE looking to get started.


The discussion presents a lot of information, but confuses the picture with references to previous content, and unclear step - by - step instructions that rely on barely readable gif screen-shots to make critical points; IE: a screen shot shows a cursor poised over a dataset binding source, but the image is unintelligible, and the text does not say which binding source to choose. So if you can figure it out, you will be fine!


Clearly, this was written ahead of the release of products it was intended for, and probably will suffer because of that issue alone. But seems to be a reasonable contribution.


Advice: wait for a title that follows the product release, rather than precedes!


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