It's hard to rate such a multiple-personality book as this one. Much of what is here is in error, or subject to interpretation, at the very least; something unforgivable in a programming book. And yet, when I need a quick reference or a refresher on how to do something basic, this is usually the first place I turn. So there IS some value to it, at least that's the way I see it, but I can't unhesitatingly recommend it for egregious editorial (one assumes) errors.

This is certainly a book for those (like me) who have almost no familiarity with Visual Basic. I'd done a little program modifying a few years ago for my company, and had worked with a much, much earlier version of VB (2.0, for those of you who remember the stone age) a ways back, but my development knowledge lies in other areas. Petroutsos' book, combined with my knowledge of C++ and SQL, got me up to speed exceptionally quickly, but non-programmers picking this up as their first programming book are likely going to be extremely frustrated finding errors they don't know how to debug in the published code. But for the programming veteran who's just a novice to Visual Basic, there is likely a lot to be learned from this book. Just watch your step. ** 1/2