By Greg M. Perry
Sams Publishing
Introduction
You probably are anxious to get started with your 24-hour Visual Basic course. Take just a few preliminary moments to acquaint yourself with the design of this book, which is described in the next few sections.
Who Should Read This Book
This book is for programmers and would-be programmers who want to learn Visual Basic as quickly as possible without sacrificing the foundation necessary to master the language. Visual Basic is a product that can be used at many levels. Newcomers who have never programmed can create a complete working Windows program in less than two hours, as this book demonstrates. Those who have programmed in other languages will appreciate Visual Basic's design, which makes creating a Windows program more like designing a screen with a mouse-driven art program.
This book is for programmers and would-be programmers who want to learn Visual Basic as quickly as possible without sacrificing the foundation necessary to master the language. Visual Basic is a product that can be used at many levels. Newcomers who have never programmed can create a complete working Windows program in less than two hours, as this book demonstrates. Those who have programmed in other languages will appreciate Visual Basic's design, which makes creating a Windows program more like designing a screen with a mouse-driven art program.
This book teaches Visual Basic on several levels. You will quickly begin creating applications by following simple examples. These applications will be fully working Windows applications with all the usual user-interface controls, such as command buttons, labels, and text boxes.
Once you become familiar with building the program's user interface, you can start honing your programming skills by learning the actual Visual Basic programming language. Fortunately, learning Visual Basic's programming language is much easier than learning others, such as C++.
As long as you are familiar with Windows, you can create applications with Visual Basic. You don't have to be a Windows expert, but you should feel comfortable working with menus, the mouse, and the Windows interface. If you've opened, closed, and resized windows, you surely have the skills necessary to create your own Visual Basic applications.
This 24-hour course teaches Visual Basic 6, the latest and greatest Visual Basic incarnation. Visual Basic 6 requires Windows 95/98 or Windows NT 4.0. The user interface introduced in Windows 95and that now appears in Windows NTmakes working within a windowed environment enjoyable.