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Title: Win32 API Programming with Visual Basic by Steven Roman ISBN: 1-56592-631-5 Publisher: O'Reilly & Associates Pub. Date: 01 November, 1999 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $39.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.3 (10 reviews)
Rating: 3
Summary: Not another great book from O'Reilly...
Comment: First, this seems like mostly a C book, not a VB book as the title implies. Sure, the C structures and function call variables are usually provided w/translations (but not always!). And there is a whole chapter on VB strings. But I got the impression the author doesn't know a ton about VB and why a VB programmer might want/need to concern himself with the API function calls. This didn't phase me a ton because I know C, but I thought a lot of the text wasn't much about VB at all.
First-and-a-half, the author is running Windows NT, so if you're like me and on Win 95/98 you may at times feel like you're being left out. He does go to some lengths to compare and point out the differences between the two OS's, but (again) I felt like he was a C/NT programmer rather than a VB/9x programmer.
Second, even though the intro says its for both VB5 and VB6, I use the former and couldn't get the crucial examples on the CD to run without first hunting down and finding the needed DLL's on the I-Net one-by-one. This was a tedious process because after a program would clear past one error message on startup it'd hit the next one. And so on. This was a huge hassle. It probably didn't help that the one bad spot on my CD was the dll.readme file (maybe all this was pointed out in there) -- I probably should have taken the book back, but then I would have had to wait for them to order another one and for it to come in, go back a third time to get it, etc...
Third, the book is not any sort of complete reference to the API functions. Some of the chapters only mention a couple of the functions relevant to the topic, or at least give you the feeling there's more out there that you might want to know about. The functions that are mentioned sometimes only have one or two of their parameters explained (as if the others don't matter). So if you're looking for an API reference book, this probably isn't it.
At least most of the typos in the book can be found at O'Reilly's website, though a careful reader can find a couple that haven't been flagged.
I expected a better book. At least the writing is clear.
Rating: 5
Summary: Meticulous survey of ALL Intricacies of WIN32 for VB
Comment: This is a very hard book (for VB programmer with no C experience) BY NECESSITY.
Normally, you would like the programming book to have some explanation and plenty of code examples. In the case of Win32 API
for VB programmer, once you get all the intricacies, you just need to find the API function from API viewer applet that comes with Visual Studio.
Why is the book hard by necessity?
C and VB have enough differences (e.g. variable type size differences, signed and unsigned type differences etc) to make the interoperability of languages difficult. Add to this the complexity of the Windows architecture itself and C + VB + WIN32
becomes much more complex, than just C + Win32, which makes me wonder, why use VB at all, if you are planning to make an extensive use of WIN32. Much easier to code in C or C++!
Back to the book.
It does excellent job explaining C + VB + Win32 API interaction
thoroughly. He leaves no stone unturned. If you absorb the book cover to cover, you can consider yourself guru in the area.
You want need anything else than API function declarations.
In short, this is a book for ONLY DEDICATED, serious programmer, intending not just to spice up his code with occasional API calls, but ending up with FULL UNDERSTANDING OF ALL ISSUES.
Rating: 5
Summary: Great book for starters
Comment: This book in no way is a reference book or a how-to book. This book is designed for people who don't have previous knowledge about windows architecture and windows API.
I find this book as a fantastic tool since it gives me initiative and direction to understand the overall picture. I can use the knowledge that I gained in this book and know what I can do with win32 API. I also purchased the dan appleman's book for win32 api which consists of more examples and it is more a reference book .
If you have not programmed in win32 before --> this is the book for you.
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Title: Dan Appleman's Visual Basic Programmer's Guide to the Win32 API by Dan Appleman ISBN: 0672315904 Publisher: SAMS Pub. Date: February, 1999 List Price(USD): $59.99 |
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Title: Subclassing & Hooking with Visual Basic by Stephen Teilhet ISBN: 0596001185 Publisher: O'Reilly & Associates Pub. Date: 15 May, 2001 List Price(USD): $49.95 |
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Title: Dan Appleman's Win32 Api Puzzle Book and Tutorial for Visual Basic Programmers : by Dan Appleman ISBN: 1893115011 Publisher: APress Pub. Date: March, 1999 List Price(USD): $39.95 |
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Title: PC Magazine Visual Basic Programmer's Guide to the Windows Api/Book and Disk by Daniel Appleman, Dan Appleman ISBN: 1562760734 Publisher: Ziff Davis Pr Pub. Date: January, 1993 List Price(USD): $34.95 |
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Title: Visual Basic 6 Win32 API Tutorial by Jason Bock ISBN: 1861002432 Publisher: Wrox Press Inc Pub. Date: 06 November, 1998 List Price(USD): $39.99 |
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