Visual Basic and Algorithmic Thinking for the Complete Beginner: Learn to Think Like a Programmer

I’ve been out of high school many more decades than I care to relate but this book reads to me like a high school textbook. You can skip over the sophomoric quizzes and crossword puzzles but how many adult aspiring programmers want to revisit motion problems and quadratic equations?I don’t see why procedures and functions are left to chapter 35 (out of 39 chapters). The scope and lifetime of variables are insufficiently discussed as are variable attributes (public, private, friend and shared).My biggest criticism, outside of the book’s unsuitability for most adults, is its failure to say anything about forms programming. Now I understand that this is a book for complete beginners and that you have to walk before you can run but no one wants to be limited to console programs. A forms program I wrote to calculate yield to maturity on a treasury security uses four textboxes for input, one for output and a single button which requests the calculation. All the code for the program was placed in the button handle. Simple programs can be written using textboxes, a single button and a couple of data conversion functions instead of using console applications.Finally, there is little or no discussion of variable attributes (public, private, friend & shared), structures and the related subject reference versus value variables.

I have found myself in the position that I must learn programming for work. I have bought numerous books trying to teach myself how to program but have struggled quite a lot. There are several programming books out there that could be used to learn programing but none seemed to have the basics of thinking like a programmer. Thank goodness I found this book, it has been a life saver. This book provides a clear, concise and organized teaching method that allows for the fact the user is a complete beginner in programming. The basics of Visual Basic programming are presented in a detailed manner which are easily understandable for the beginner; and provides practical guidance in using the Visual Studio IDE. I am still working through the book, but my knowledge base has already expanded greatly.I would definitely recommend this book for beginners!

The book is clearly a self-published effort lacking a good technical editor. It also spends a great deal of time on flowcharts.While I found a couple of useful tidbits in the book, on the whole I found it simplistic and for a beginner book, it was oddly disjointed. Most beginners are going to want to learn to create a Windows program, not a console program and there was no discussion of creating a windows program from the book.Additionally, there are a great many - GREAT MANY - exercises, quiz questions, even crosswords. In some respects, it should have been sold as a text book for a highschool class on programming.Overall I got more out of a 13 year old "teach yourself" type book that referenced VB.NET 2008 than this.

This book provides a clear and organized teaching method that respects the fact that the reader is a beginner, yet shows great respect for the reader's intelligence. The basics of Visual Basic programming is presented in a detailed manner which is usable for the beginner; yet at the same time the book provides practical guidance on the use of Visual Studio, which is software for the creation of Visual Basic programs. The book is reasonably priced; Visual Studio is a free download from Microsoft. After each Chapter practical application is taught by the use of exercises, and the answers to each exercise are available in a separate free download. It is recommended that the answers be downloaded, but not examined, before each chapter is completed. That way, the answers are available immediately for feedback.The book presents increasingly challenging material at a reasonable pace, with plenty of clear examples and opportunities to exercise each new learning module. The book not only teaches Visual Basic programming, and the use of Visual Studio software (the technical term for software like Visual Studio in computer talk is Integrated Development Environment or "IDE"; while it's fun to do tech-talk, be prepared for lots of new terms), but also teaches "Algorithmic" thinking. Don't be deterred by another new term like "algorithmic." Algorithmic thinking is step-by-step problem-solving method that employs the same logic we use for all good thinking. Yet, as our skills in algorithmic thinking increase, thinking not only becomes more clear, but becomes more comprehensive. The opportunities in life to use algorithmic thinking for simple and complex problem solving are endless. Not to mention, the job opportunities for those who can program with the use of detailed and comprehensive algorithms are limitless.As you progress through each clear and reasonably brief chapter of the book, you surprise yourself that you are not only learning programming, but you are learning to think more clearly about increasingly complex subjects. If you continue with Visual Basic programming you may even be able to modify Microsoft Office programs (macros) to suit your particular needs. And as many courses in programming tell us, once you learn one programming language like Visual Basic, it becomes much easier to learn others which may be more powerful.The author is quickly and easily available by email to answer specific questions and provide support. In addition, he and his co-author have a series of books on other programming languages and how to employ algorithmic thinking in each of them.The best part of this book is not just its clarity and powerful detail, but that it doubles as a workbook. If you print out the answers to each exercise for each chapter ahead of time, you can cut them to the same size as the pages of the book, insert them after each chapter, and you have a total workbook to carry around and work on for a while whenever you have a chance.It is rare to see authors in the computer sciences who respect our intelligence yet provide clear and useable steps. The book almost totally free of arcane jargon, yet introduces us to the special vocabulary of the computer sciences and beginning programming. This book is a piece of cake for beginners, and excellent way for an advance programmer to learn a new language.

Lessons and exercises are easy to follow