Very handy
I am a learn as you go vb programmer. This book was constantly by my side and used more than all my other books combined. It is a fast and easy way to check the syntax and parameters of a statemets.Two complaints: 1. Examples were given of instructions, but not results. Sometimes it was not clear to me exactly what the statement would do. 2. No reference of statements by type. For example, if working with time and dates, you have to be familiar with the various statements, no list of all time and date statements.
An Essential Book
I think this book irreplacable on my reference shelf. I use it everyday for work. If you do any Visual Basic work, I recommend that you get this book. It's only $15 and it has already paid for itself several times over. I use this book every day, and highly recommend it to anyone. A previous reviewer complained about a bad binding (true) and simple index. Since the all the language and method entries are alphabetic, I never really looked at the index. I also always use the `See Also' listings at the end of each term to find related commands.
Basically (hmm) a good book, spoiled by carelessness.
This Programmers Reference follows in the format of other References from Osborne, and like the other references, suffers from the same bad binding, which does not allow the book to sit flat on the desk. Something I consider essential for a reference book as I usually need to type while reading something. Not possible. The index is redundant, as it simply lists the keywords in the reference, rather than being a keyword/subject cross-reference, which is really what is needed. Some of the entries suffer from "cut and paste" syndrome, where paragraphs have obviously been chopped from another section, but not modified for their new placement, leading, for instance, to the Oct$ section talking about Hexadecimal numbers. The second half of the book contains some very useful information on Object Models, unfortuanately it is hard to find what you are looking for, and again reflects a hurried attempt to throw the book together. Compared to the C++ Programmers Reference (that I also use) this book is a definite disappointment.
(3 reviews)