Hi, College student here interested in learning about visual basic. My excel skills are decent, and my VB skills are non-existent. Could you guys please point me in the direction of VB books that start from the basics and build upwards? Ones that you recommend? Much appreciated.
The book I started with was "VB for dummies". After that was "VB in 21 days". As an intro to Vb with some basic programming, both are excellent.
I am a good VB and VB script programmer that is self taught. However I didn't learn from any books really. What I did was I started small and identified what I wanted my program to do. Then I searched the internet for samples of how to do something similar and modified it to do what I wanted. I gradually increased my knowledge this way and now have written some very complex ASP (VB Script code) professionally for a couple of web sites, as well as some extensive database and Active Directory management tools for the company I work for. I also built a couple of .dll files. One that can perform one way hash encryption based on the governmental SHA-128 algorithm. The other one fills in missing math functions from VB such as converting Octal to Hexadecimal and Binary to Octal. For me personally I found it much easier to learn hands on by using examples to figure out how to do what I wanted than by simply reading a book. EDIT: a really good reference site is <a href="http://www.devguru.com/">http://www.devguru.com/</a>. Pretty mush all of the functions in the VBScript section are exactly the same is the code for VB.
I have the same story, those are the 2 books I started out with. The Dummies book starts from square one, gives you the basics. I also agree you should have a project in mind so you can start implementing what you are reading about. Obviously which version of VB software you have access to will decide which books you get. There is VB-6, Vb.Net (various years 2003, 2005 etc...) I started out with Vb-6 because I got the software for free.
I was in a similar situation to you a couple of years ago and one thing that threw me initially is that VB (Visual Basic) is not the same as VBA (Visual Basic for Applications). VB = standalone programming language VBA = programming language built into Excel, Word etc. In my case I wanted to write functions, macros etc in Excel, and if this is what you're after then I'd recommend SAMS Teach Yourself VBA in 21 days.
Thanks for the suggestions guys. I do agree the best way to learn the language is to put it into practice, so I do have a couple of ideas for projects I'd like to put together. As far as VB vs. VBA, I think I'd lean towards the latter to integrate Excel and VBA. This is what I think will be most useful in the workplace. Anyway, I'll checkout VB for Dummies and 21 days. Any other suggestions?
The following link is the best source for Visual Basic Help and info on the web. Do a search there and you'll find plenty of good answers. http://www.vbforums.com/ Enjoy, Slave2Market
I am resurrecting this thread b/c I'm looking for a good VB.net book, and I know there is something better than VB for dummies. A beginners book that uses examples related to data exchange. As for my personal preferences on writing style. I'm not a big fan of metaphors. I feel like authors of beginner's guides can get a little carried away. Also, I am asking about VB.net, not VBA and I don't want any posts about why I should be learning C++, C# or JAVA. I'm learning VB because I need results now. Next year I'll learn C++. Thank you for any recommendations!