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Search in Book Reviews

The ACCU passes on review copies of computer books to its members for them to review. The result is a large, high quality collection of book reviews by programmers, for programmers. Currently there are 1949 reviews in the database and more every month.
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Title:
Learning to Program with Visual Basic
Author:
Patrick McKeown
ISBN:
0 471 19814 5
Publisher:
Wiley
Pages:
493pp
Price:
£19-99
Reviewer:
Alec Ross
Subject:
basic
Appeared in:
11-3
This book is aimed at teaching programming using VB, rather than VB itself. It is intended to be a class text for students who have problems with programming logic. I have problems with the book and I guess that so would other ACCU members.

As a book I think that it is rather verbose - this being exacerbated by the verbal dialogue used to develop the scenario of the running case study. I guess that the author knows his audience and perhaps this approach used is best for them. I could imagine the material being put across in lectures and practical sessions. Those that had problems in class might appreciate having the lesson repeated in print. Those that grasped the points fist time would not have to read it. Also, the level of detailed instructions would be useful for self-study.

The book does indeed cover programming fundamentals of sequence, selection and iteration - but it weds these too much to the concrete VB illustrations for my taste. And indeed, despite the proclaimed aim given above, the VB material dominates to such a degree that the book ends up being a beginner's VB tutorial. As such it succeeds.