5 comments about Advanced .NET Remoting, Second Edition.

1. I hate it when I pay good money for a poorly written book. So when I buy a book like this and it turns out so well, I am thrilled!
   
   I have been in ".NET land" since 2001 when .NET beta 2 came out. I have written ASP.NET and Winform applications. During that time I just have not had the need to use .NET remoting, until now. The first 2 or 3 chapters are a great introduction for experienced .NET developers. I like the fact that I did not have to wade through a lot of stuff for beginners. From there the topics get advanced, with plenty of good example code to highlight the topics. Even though I had never really touched .NET remoting (except SOAP Web Services), the explanations and examples work well for me. The author keeps the examples simple, and on-topic. In my opinion, this helps to highlight the topics at hand. The content is geared towards real programmers who will be using the technology.
   
   I also have really enjoyed the authors' candor concerning the weaknesses of .NET remoting. They have already highlighted a bad approach that I was considering.
   
   I am more than happy to give this book a 5 star review!



2. This book almost contain every detail of .NET Remoting.I am sure you can well understanding the .NET Remoting with the help of this book.It gives many good tips and useful cases ,also have some additional experiences of the author.However, I am sory that this book don't have any real and integrated distributed business solutions based on .NET Remoting(I think so ,at least ), although it contains many good cases. but I still strongly recommend you to buy this book, if you want to know .NET Remoting deeply.



3. This is actually a good book, however, it approaches the subject with an extremely hypothetical view. Lack of real world examples has made reading this book a real bore.
   
   The book on the other hand offers in-depth information regarding the "behind the scenes" work of .NET remoting.
   
   Final verdict: Good value for money, but do not expect any code to work.



4. I'm never one to buy books one technology, mainly because they change frequently and you can always find tutorials online. This book however, is well written, descriptive and a must for anyone working with .NET remoting. Excellent!



5. Excellent book. Exactly what I was looking for. With it you can gain a very well understanding of the subject. simple examples that you can easyly adapt to your specific needs.

3 comments about Beginning DotNetNuke 4.0 Website Creation in VB 2005 with Visual Web Developer 2005 Express: From Novice to Professional (Beginning: from Novice to Professional).

1. It's not for the complete novice and it won't teach you how to code. But it will get you up and going with VWD and DNN. Well written with good screenshots. He also takes you through the process of creating modules. It's a good primer and was what I was looking for.



2. This is a very good introduction to DotNetNuke. It will help you install DNN on you own machine and guide you through building a simple website.
   
   If you know a little about programming in VB and know something about HTML and CSS, this book will show you how to write your own DNN modules and create your own DNN skins and containers. You won't learn how to write complex modules or elaborate skins but you'll learn the basics.
   
   If you already know how to install DNN and how to create DNN modules and skins, this book is not for you.
   
   If you know nothing about programming in VB and know nothing about HTML, then you should probably learn about them before you tackle this book.



3. This book will take you from absolutely no knowledge of DotnetNuke and get you well on your way. Simple to follow. Like any good intro book it will help you to understand how DNN works and gives you enough information to know where to go to learn more. For example after you are shown what a skin is and how to use it you are then shown how to make one of your own. You should then understand where you want to go from there. My experience level is 1.5 years as an ASP.net, VB and C# Developer with SQL server 2005. I have no previous knowledge of DNN. It will be very helpful if you know a bit about Visual Web developer, Light Coding, CSS, XML and some graphics program knowledge such as Fireworks or Photoshop. However, this book will get even the non programmer where he needs to be to use DNN. In short - if you are new, Start here.

5 comments about Beginning ASP.NET 2.0 in VB 2005: From Novice to Professional (Beginning: from Novice to Professional).

1. Before purchasing this book, the reader should have "some" working knowledge of Visual Basic 2005 Language, a VB 2005 reference book or some form of training material for VB 2005 Language; the book only presents an overview of VB 2005. If you are hoping that this book will cover Strongly Typed Datasets, then you will be sorely dissappointed; the book doesn't even mention it, which, as one reviewer noted, may be outside its scope.
   The author's use of "Novice to Professional" clearly means you are not an absolute beginner. Overall, this book is a great introduction into [.........]



2. This book was not helpful it does not give any exercises it jumps from one topic to another. The book is suppose to be for beginners not advanced.



3. I teach a web application development course for experienced MIS undergraduate students at a huge southern university. This is the second edition of MadDonald's in VB I have used and will continue to use it as long as he keeps publishing them. My students will have had two programming courses in which they use VB and are very experienced with database design, SQL, and stored procedures.
   
   The book provides superb coverage of the development and execution environment, the fundamentals of coding and contols, data connectivity, security, and performance issues. Unlike most other references (at least for VB 2003) MacDonald focuses exclusively on the code-behind pages and doesn't try to mix up the VB code in the HTML pages.
   
   The book contains a superb brief overview of web services--definitely enough for my students to create and field their own.
   
   The explanations and examples are well written and easy to follow for this audience.



4. Sylvia B. Gonzalez, ASP.NET is really not a beginning subject. I have been in the business for more than 40 years, it is not an easy business. That is the reason they pay us well.
   
   Just keep reading, find a book that is best for the way you learn.



5. Another excellent book. The writter not only presents the subeject very well but his was way of presenting the information and samples are well choreographed. No time wasted, to the point. Hope that he writes other books.

5 comments about Beginning Access 2003 VBA (Programmer to Programmer).

1. I must highly recommend this book by Denise Gosnell. After skimming through about 20 books on the subject at a super bookstore in Melbourne, I decided this book was the best by far. I must admit, I am beginning to become slightly discouraged at the amount of books out there - especially on PHP and MySQL that I decided to bite the bullet and learn Access and Visual Basic programming.
   
   This book gives you great examples and you CAN go to any chapter depending on your current skill level without being thrown on a tangent of fancy techniques and confusing explanations. All I want in a book, is someone to TEACH me through step by step explanations and well thought out sample exersizes. Denise has a wonderful ability to write and keep up your enthusiasm to keep perservering. I highly commend everyone give this book a go and you will see what I am talking about.
   
   Thank you Denise, I look forward to reading some more of you work in the near future.



2. it's a great start FOR SOMEONE WHO KNOWS A LITTLE VBA. I highly do not recommend if for beginners. If you know nothing about vba, variables, sub routines, functions etcetera, I would suggest you start with a Steve Roman book on VBA for Word. The book is a great concept book for beginner understanding of n-tear programming in vba. As far as doing tricks in vba, there are very few examples in this book. The wrok advanced vba should have been the beginner book (to some degree.)



3. I've never coded in VBA. I've always relied on the macros in MS Access to do everything I needed to do. However, I picked this book up to try and learn a few new things. By the time I got through chapter 6, I was writing VBA code like it was nothing.
   
   Incredible text written so the novice user can understand it with excellent hands-on examples and exercies both provide a tremendous self educational experience for the most basic of VBA programmers (such as myself).



4. I took program courses years ago in college and was a very good programmer. However I never ventured into visual language because I found them confusing. This book will get you started. It gives you all the basics. If you have done old basic you need to get past the terminology but the example explain themselves. It give you skill but like any art you need to put it on the canvas. Great book!



5. I am relatively new to programming, but am very familiar with Access. I picked up this book hoping to improve my ability to customize my Access databases, but I've decided to return it to Amazon. The reader is asked to repeatedly try out examples, which is typically followed by a brief, superficial explanation of the code. Often, some of the more complex calculation are simply not explained!
   
   If you are new to programming, do NOT buy this book. If you have any experience with Visual Basic programming, this book MIGHT give you some insight into how to navigate the Access programming environment, but even then it probably will fall short.

1 comments about Building Java Programs: A Back to Basics Approach.

1. The dominant approach to teaching Java is to start with objects as early as possible - the object first approach. If this is what you want, then this is not the right book. However, I believe that a growing number of people, myself included, have come to believe that object first doesn't work. Since OO is primarily a design and organization approach for building large systems it typically does not make sense to students trying to do one or two page introductory projects. In addition, the time taken in trying to explain objects comes out of time that would have been spent in learning programming basics such as loops, arrays, etc. The result is too many students that can't write good procedural code, as well as never grasping object.
   
   Due to this problem, I have chosen to organize my classes to begin with a procedural style of programming (focused on loops and arrays) and introduce OO at the beginning of the second semester. One of my frustrations has been a lack of supporting material for this approach, particularly among introductory Java textbooks.
   
   This book solves this problem for me. It introduces concepts in almost exactly the order I have decided to use in my courses. The book is well written. It has a modern organization in terms of things like sidebars and its graphic design without going overboard and trying to compete with MTV the way the Head First series does, or by putting in a bunch of expensive color pictures that have nothing to do with the subject as many current textbooks do. In short, the book design matches its subtitle of being "a back to basics approach".
   
   The authors have chosen to avoid showing a specific IDE and limit graphics to an optional chapter. I approve of both of these choices. I find that teaching IDE's, such as BlueJ, leave students confused about what the tool does and what the programming language does. While full IDE's, such as Eclipse, overwhelm first semester students. Graphics are "sexy" but every library is different. Real world libraries, like Swing, are too complicated for first semester students. Teaching libraries make the students learn something that is promptly thrown away. I, like the authors, would rather put the effort into the basics of programming.
   
   This brings us to the book's other strengths - well thought out examples and assignments that use the basic portion of the language (and could be used with practically any language). A series of character graphic examples are presented that do a good job of showing ideas such as repetition, and functional decomposition. They also include many good "case studies" that show how to apply the techniques introduced in the chapter to a "large" (for first semester) programming problem that is related to real world concepts. For example, one early case study calculates body mass index (fat to weight ratio) of a person. Their case study examples are definitely better then what I am usually able to come up with on the fly, which I think is a key reason to even bother with a text book.
   
   Summary: I believe this book delivers on its title. It is a well written book that focuses on the basics of learning a programming language without getting lost among "hot" topics like OO, IDE's, or GUI's. I will be switching my classes to this book.

5 comments about Microsoft Windows Scripting Self-Paced Learning Guide (Pro-Other).

1. This book had everything I was looking for and is a good source of information.



2. I've found this book with excellent content and very helpful for my clients ( I Work in a Technical Support Group for VIP Customers). The author drives you through with very clear language and at the same time funny and keeps you hooked to it.
   
   Highly Recommended! Specially for those deep into Thechnical stuff.



3. I use the book all the time to help groups of customers learn scripting. It jumps into useful examples early in the book. You build on those examples until you get to the point where you are combining the technologies to build useful scripts, like using Active Directory to create a list of computers which you then analyze and configure using Windows Management Instrumentation ( set of extensions to the Windows Driver Model that provides an operating system interface through which instrumented components can provide information and notification ). If you read only to chapter 15 you get a solid background of how WMI exposes a collection of COM scriptable objects that allow various applications to take advantage of the management information, including information about how Active Directory can be manipulated with VB Script.



4. I admit I avoided purchasing this book as I felt I was beyond it since I know Perl. I ran into it again when I purchased Microsoft Windows Administrator's Automation Toolkit (Pro-One-Offs). On the CD there is a e-book form of the book.
   
   I figured why not read it? One possible drawback exists if you pick up the automation toolkit book. You will not get a copy of the scripts. It's not an issue if you don't mind typing. Which for me is better as making mistakes and debugging helped me more then simply watching a script run.
   
   I noticed that the e-book might be an earlier version of the printed book as the scripting style changes for a copy of the scripts.
   
   As to the claims of the scripts not working; I ran into that as well but they are easy to solve. Well except one. You look for computers in AD, the scripting didn't know how to handle a Linux Samba entry.
   
   Overall the book is decent. I was looking for something to give me an introduction to vbscript. Something more then a beginning "howto" script book.
   
   There is not much discussion about the WSH engine. However, for me that was not an issue as I am still in the beginning stages of vbscript. This might be more of an issue as I get more advanced. But, this will probably get solved by an advanced book or looking on the Net.
   
   The book does some basic stuff in the beginning. Loops, if/then, Arrays. Part 2 of the book introduces basic administration. There you will be introduced to file system objects, WMI, and WMI queries. Part 3, takes more advanced administration issues with and introduction to LDAP, ADSI, Searching AD, Configuring Network components, logon scripts, working with registry, and working with printers. Part 4, deals with other apps such as IIS6 and exchange 2003.
   
   The appendix has some info on ADSI, and WMI. It's ok if you are starting out but I think it will grow past it's usefulness.
   
   The scripts in book are simple and straightforward. They don't have a great deal of intelligence built in to deal with unknowns. Probably, not needed as this is an introduction book.
   
   Overall I am happy with the book. It gave me an idea as to some possibilities and it helped me understand better on where to look for stuff.



5. I got this as a freebie ebook when I bought the WMI scripting book.
   What a total waste. I am new to Widows scripting but an old hack at *Nix shell scripting and perl. I needed to do some scripting for a client that doesn't have perl installed universally, but wants scripts to run universally on their windows servers.
   
   I wasted a couple of days beating my head against the wall because I used this book. I finally bought "Windows 2000 Scripting Guide" and got my scripts working.
   
   In addition to the complaints others have left indicating the the author does not explain the programming model, I found myself with a large hole in my foot because this author directed me to point a gun at my boot before pulling the trigger.
   
   I used the sample scripts in the book as a starting point in my scripts, but unwittingly injected really bad practices into my programs.
   
   The author states in Chapter 1:
   "So 'On Error Resume Next' tells the computer that when something is messed up (causing an error), you want the computer to just skip that line and try the next line in the script. This process is called error handling,"
   
   Actually, this is called ERROR HIDING (not handling) and it causes things that are messed up (causing an error) to be hidden from your view so you CAN'T find or fix them.
   
   This is the worst bad practice that can be taught
   
   Here is an example of how bad it is:
   while using this directive your code that looks like:
   IF condition THEN
   positive_action
   ELSE
   negative_action
   END IF
   
   will, when an error is encountered in evaluating the condition, get transmogrified into simply:
   
   positive_action
   
   The "condition" that includes an error ALWAYS evaluates to true.
   I can't think of a worse logic bomb to inject into your code or a better reason to skip this book.

5 comments about Beginning REALbasic: From Novice to Professional (Expert's Voice).

1. I'm honestly surprised at the good reviews this book has gotten. I own literally hundreds of technical books (and have even helped write a couple), and believe I know good technical writing when I read it. Good technical writing makes the reader more enlightened, not more confused and frustrated. But after spending several trying hours with this book, the latter is just how I feel.
   
   I don't doubt that Mr. Ford is a whiz programmer, and has a thorough understanding of the subject. But it's quite a different skill set to be able to convey that understanding in a methodical and enlightening way.
   
   There's certainly a lot of information in this book, and much of it is helpful. But what drove me up the wall, among other things, is the subtle penchant the author seems to have for assuming that you already know what it is that he's referring to, even before he's actually bothered to explain it.
   
   Thus, one of the first things I looked for was a brief Glossary of key terms and concepts. ... There wasn't any.
   
   Failing that, I resorted to the Index -- which turns out to be quite hit-or-miss as well. A cursory search through the book reveals that certain key terms appear a full *80 pages* or more before their earliest reference in the index ("module" and "method" are but two examples).
   
   And a handful of key terms don't even appear in the index at all! (Omissions I quickly chanced across included: class[!] ... declare ... intrinsic ... literal ... variant. And I'm sure if I continued to plow through this tome, my guess is I'd find a bunch more.)
   
   Additionally, some passages describing key concepts scream out for a well-placed diagram or two. Instead, they're conveyed through languorous prose. (Example: Classes/Subclass/Super Class, on pages 209 & 211.)
   
   There's also circumlocution: for example, on p.117, Mr. Ford goes on about how "difficult" it is to preview how menus will look under different OS's ... and then in the very next paragraph, demonstrates how easy it is!
   
   But the last straw, and what spoke volumes to me, was a number of minor typos scattered throughout the text. Clearly, if I could find a bunch of these in just the first hour or two of reading, then clearly there wasn't a decent book editor/proofreader assigned to the case. (Someone worth their salt could also have helped spruce up organization of the content, and made it more accessible in general, with respect to much of the above.)
   
   In spite of this book being billed as for "Beginners" and "Novices" -- I frequently got the impression that it's really targeted for *experienced* programmers (who just happen to be transitioning from some other language, like Visual Basic).
   
   Thus, in spite of the glossy cover (and even the author's CV), I do get the distinct impression that the book is put out by a relatively-fledgling publishing company. Clearly, they aren't one of the majors -- or for that matter, my impression goes, even particularly experienced in this realm.
   
   Now, don't get me wrong: I'm a very technically-savvy guy. And I really don't have an axe to grind. I just didn't know RealBasic ... which is why I bought this book! It's too bad there's such a dearth of current material on this intriguing cross-platform development environment, and thus, more choices of good books on the subject.
   
   Nevertheless, based on all the foregoing, you may consider looking elsewhere (even at older books, by more established authors), if you're looking for a genuinely well-written introduction to the topic. As soon as I finish posting this review, I'm going to do the same.
   
   
   [Addendum, 7/8/07]:
   Yesterday, I just happened to run across the author's latest book, "AppleScript Studio Programming for the Absolute Beginner". Surprisingly, it's far better and seems to address many of the weaknesses from this book, listed above. But unfortunately, it's not about RealBasic! The notable difference in style, though, is enough to confirm my hunch that what "Beginning REALbasic" could have used was more rigorous editing and insightful layout, by someone knowledgeable about presenting technical material. Hopefully, someone will catch onto this for a future edition ... or perhaps some other author will give the subject a go. In the meantime, I'm going to return this book, and pick up the Neuberg and Tejkowski ones instead.



2. For me, this book is a good review. I've done a lot of programming, so it's nice to get some specific tips on REALbasic to remind me how it works as opposed to other languages. It is written from an IT guy's viewpoint, so it is pretty thorough. It doesn't quite go as advanced as I need, and it's so thoroughly multi-OS that I have to dig out info about Mac OS X, which is all I'm really interested in.



3. While not as in depth as I would like, this book is definatley helpful for RealBasic beginners. I went from clueless to creating decent apps in a couple days. Modifying the included examples to my own purposes was easy. I added bookmark functionality to the web browser, tweaked this and that just to see what I could do, and am very pleased.
   
   
   recommended.



4. Looking to learn REALbasic...this book won't get you there. It will get you interested. It will even show you what it's capable of doing. It just won't get you there. If you already know REALbasic, there's nothing new to learn here. If you don't, just don't expect this to be the only book you purchase to learn it.
   
   That being said, the book is well-written and easy to follow. I recommend it, but only if you know what you are getting and that is basically an intro to REALbasic.



5. and then you realize that REALBasic does not have the sophistication of Visual Basic. Forget about a converting program, there is just not enough similarities between the two languages. I have several thousand pages of books on Visual Basic, but just this one book on REALBasic. Maybe there needs to be more books to get across all the capabilities of REALBasic.
   The author of this book gives examples, but they are simple and of limited use in writing programs.

5 comments about VBScript in a Nutshell, 2nd Edition.

1. I don't have this book, I've never read it. But the negative reviews for it are out of line. People have reviewed it claiming it isn't for the beginner or for learning VB Script. NO KIDDING!! It is called NUTSHELL for a reason. It is a reference book, NOT a learning book. Don't give bad reviews for a book because you were too stupid to realize you bought the wrong book. That's just as bad as buying a Java book and complaining that it doesn't have any Javascipt examples in it.



2. This is not the book to learn the basics of VBScript, but it's exactly what I needed; a good reference book. I got tired of trying to find syntax of commands and functions online. Now I have it at my fingertips.



3. This is not intended for beginners in scripting or VBScript in particular. But for anyone with even moderate programming or scripting, this may be all you'll need to become familiar with VBScript.
   
   Written in the spare, terse style of all Nutshell books, the book is very dense in terms of information. The major aspects of VBScript's versatility are explored (though there are no references to HTML Applications (HTAs)). The major functions are explained and there is a complete reference.
   
   An essential volume for anyone using VBScript.
   
   Jerry



4. This text is excellent for folks working on VBs projects. It contains good examples, great information about syntax and also warnings for "gotcha's" -- it's great!



5. I've been a big fan of the 1st edition for years and found it very helpful. I use Regular Expressions a lot in Perl and found VBScript's support for RE's a bit lacking (could not extract the submatches). I was pleasantly surprised to find that this capability was added in VBScript 5.5. I bought the 2nd edition of this book because it claimed to cover VBScript 5.6. Imagine my surprise when the SubMatches collection isn't documented at all.
   
   Overall I'm quite disappointed in the 2nd edition.

5 comments about Visual Basic 6 Complete.

1. for its price, and the amount of information provided, this book is an absolute must have for anyone who does any sort of visual basic programming. while it does skim over some of the more advanced topics in some places, it does what most other visual basic books do not - provides the reader with an awareness of the advanced topics so that they can then decide whether they wish to pursue those subjects further. with example programs that can be downloaded from the Sybex website ... and heaps of explanations and exercises within the book, it will take you to a whole new level of visual basic expertise.



2. For my introduction to today's Basic (no longer all caps, I note) and my re-education in programming, I found this to be the best value if you already have the Basic 6 program. If you haven't you might want to try one of the other books, such as Practical Visual Basic 6 by Bob Reselman and Richard Peasley which includes a disk with the Working Model Edition of Microsoft's Visual Basic 6. Professional programmers of course will want to buy the full-blown Visual Basic, but even they might find this manual handy.

   I came from the environment of the line numbered GW Basic and even "Shingo" Basic after taking a class in Basic programming at the local junior college in the late eighties. After that I learned QuickBasic on my own. QuickBasic was a programming language developed from Basic that incorporated the structured programming techniques and some of the commands and ideas used in more professional languages like C, and I forget what else. I wrote some moderately complicated programs of eight or nine hundred lines and then I didn't do any programming for years. When I returned a couple of years ago I discovered that what was now the state of the art for the amateur programmer was Visual Basic. I took a look at the program (a stripped down version that came with Word Perfect) and was absolutely flabbergasted. I could not figure out how to even begin writing a program!

   So I went to the bookstore and found several shelves of Basic books. I tried one (I don't recall the title) but found it so lacking in information and guidance (for the price) that I actually took the book back the next day and got a refund. Some other books were entirely too advanced and too specialized for my needs. Then I tried this generic title, and with help from doing the exercises in Reselman's and Peasley's book, it brought me up to speed in Visual Basic enough to write a program to keep track of some stock market data that I was interested in.

   What this book does not do that I wish a Visual Basic book would do is include an equivalence table in which the old commands from the world of QuickBasic are paired off with the new commands, and a one-for-one comparison of the old and new ways of doing things. This would be very handy for those of us who learned our Basic some years ago. I looked around for such a book but without luck.

   Fortunately many things have not changed. The random number generator works the same, for example. The techniques and commands for using sequential files, for another example, are vitually the same. The really startling changes are in the way information is presented on the screen. If you're like me and haven't done any programming lately, you will probably find yourself facing a brand new learning curve here.

   This book begins with an introduction to Visual Basic 6 and the concept of object programming in Part I, followed by practical guidance in Part II, and then in Part III introduces the reader to scripting and using Visual Basic for Internet programming. Part IV is Visual Basic for Applications, which I didn't get to, and Part V is a reference. The various chapters are taken from other Sybex publications such as e.g, Steve Brown's Visual Basic 6 In Record Time.

   In the old days, the "quick and dirty" way to really learn a programming language was to jump right in with a project and get it to work. However, like the "spaghetti code" techniques of old, such an approach will not work well if one wants to write complex programs. So I found that there is no substitute for laboriously learning a significant portion of the commands and techniques before actually trying to write a program. Writing small programs guided by experts is the best way, and that is why I do not recommend any single book for the beginner. I recommend instead that this book be purchased as complement to another book, again Practical Visual Basic 6 mentioned above would be adequate. That way if one explanation or guidance is not entirely clear, you can have the advantage of another writer's approach.

   Bottom line is the Visual Basic program itself, a way to interface and develop programs in concert with Microsoft's Windows that will astonish you with its power. Or at least it astonished this old weekend programmer.




3. The book has written on the cover "1,000 pages ONLY $19.99", and it was able to accomplish this because all of the chapters come from other books but that have been editted to be smaller so that they fit. It feels to me like various information was lost in this editting process and the only way to get this missing information is to download the source code and look at that.
   Unfortunately, the projects do not seem to open in my version of VB6, and this has made repeating the programs they describe very difficult. I am not certain why the projects won't work, but I suspect that it is because I have upgraded to service pack 6 for VB6 and somewhere along the service pack path, the project files have become obsolete. So if you purchase this book, that is something you will want to be aware of.



4. I've been wrestling with trying to review this book, along with two others I purchased as a package recently, and I came to the conclusion that I can't review this book alone, I have to review all three together. I'm reading them all simultaneously, and the similarities and differences, combined together, are making the study of Visual Basic 6.0 an extremely enjoyable experience. The other two are: (1) Visual Basic 6 by Paul Sherrif (2) Step by Step Visual Basic 6.0 by Microsoft Press. Again, I can heartily recommend the combination of all three read at the same time. You will feel as if you are getting Visual Basic training at an accelerated pace, even tho, you will probably lose track of what book covered which topic. So far, at any rate, doing it this way is working out very well for me. Try it.



5. This is a good reference book but if you are looking for details this is not the book.

5 comments about Access 2003 VBA Programmer's Reference (Programmer to Programmer).

1. I own this book along with Wordware's Access 2003 Programming by Example with VBA, XML and ASP. I find that this book has a more comprehensive treatement of subjects such as using ADE, Access upsizing via ADP versus MDB databases with linked tables and DAO. Granted that DAO is quite dated but its inclusion in the book is prefaced by a discussion of the advantages that it has over ADO in some limited applications. The book also tries to provide a balanced view of the advantages and disadvantages of each technology, even if it does spend more of its time concentrating on DAO.
   
   If you are looking for a serious reference on ADO, I would suggest that you give the Wordware title serious consideration. However, if you are comparing ADP versus MDB databases in upsizing scenarios or if you are looking for a good reference on ADE which is well rounded in its description of VBA as applied to Access in general; as opposed to a specific data access model such as ADO, then this is the book for you.
   
   The writers have done this all before and approach the subject in a narrative tone which worked for me. The section on ADP sold me on the book as I was looking at an application for upsizing an Access database to SQL server, whilst still retaining Access for the forms and reports. I was considering the two main approaches of using ADP versus MDB with linked tables and this book was able to provide me with all of the information required for me to make a sound decision.
   
   In fact I liked it so much whilst browsing it at my local Boffins bookshop that I just had to buy it on the spot! However, whilst very good, it is not worthy of 5 stars due to its excessive focus on DAO.



2. Probably the worst index I have ever seen in a programmer's reference. I really don't want to have to read the entire book to find that there is little or nothing on a particular topic of interest. These 958 pages make a great paperweight.



3. I count 6 MS Access books on my shelf at work. If I could only have one, it would be this one. I find information that I haven't found in any of the others. It's also the best reference on Access SQL. I'm in the process of developing from a casual access user to professional level, and have lots of questions.



4. I have built some pretty significant excel forms & processes using the VBA environment. This book does little to take you into developing in ACCESS. The examples are poor, inconsistent and too vague for a newbie to the environment.



5. I started working with VB back at the turn of the Century (yes, that was 8 years ago), same with ADO and databases in General. A little of this here, a little of that there It wasnt till the last year that I had to do VBA and Access, and this book brought it all together.
   
   Its not for a beginner. They dont discuss writting queries, or designing data bases nor branching and decision making. It DOES talk about Macros, Objects, Security, API and how to use the tools in Access to make full featured Access application and integrete it with other MS Office products. It gives subtle nauances that you just cant find no matter how often you push F1
   
   I was getting this stuff on my own of course, but trying to figure out something from the Help documentation and NorthWind just wasnt doing it. Our clients give my consulting company a lot of money to get things done This book was just what I needed consoldate my skill set and meet our clients needs.