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Section 1
In the Beginning |
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Have you ever bought an intermediate or advanced programming book, only to find that the first chapter begins with in-depth explanations of variables, simple operations, or ways to perform simple tasks, such as adding controls to a form? I have, and I've always found that type of book very frustrating. Not because there is anything fundamentally wrong with covering this kind of beginning information, but because I know that the advanced information that I want will usually be relegated to a few chapters toward the end of the book and will usually be inadequate as well. |
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But you have to understand that every author faces a real dilemma: If you start out at a level that is too advanced, you risk losing much of your audience and thus selling considerably fewer books.1 If you start out at a level that is too simple, you end up frustrating the professionals, who hate reading rehashes of things that they already know. It's a fine line to walk. |
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Therefore, this book is targeted at the intermediate-level Visual Basic programmer who wishes to become an expert. The puzzles assume that the reader has at least some degree of experience calling API functions. Those that don't are encouraged to work through the tutorials before trying any of the puzzles. Given those assumptions, I've taken the liberty of making even the early puzzles in this section of the book just a little bit trickier2 than you might normally expect from the "beginning" label. I suspect that even experienced programmers may have to look twice at many of these, even though most of the solutions turn out to be quite simple. |
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1 I know this sounds a bit like crass commercialism, but I think it is important that readers understand a little bit about the economics of the publishing business, because it explains a great deal about why so many lousy books are published. I actually wrote an essay on the subject called "Are you learning Visual Basic backwards?" that is available on our Web site at www.desaware.com. |
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2 OK, maybe a lot trickier in some cases. |
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