Customer Reviews

Excel 2000 Developer's Handbook

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

This book is terribly organized. Even after you've read it several times, you will still have trouble finding anything in it.

The author seems to know her material, but the presentation is so poorly organized that she fails to effectively transfer her knowledge and experience.

Let's start with the chapter organization. The author starts with the subject of the chapter, then wanders off into a discussion of what is, at best, very remotely related material. For example, Chapter 2 is supposed to discuss comments (why? who cares about comments in a book about programming VBA?). She spends 20 pages on attaching comments to cells (snooze!), then suddenly devotes the rest of the chapter to the implementation of VB controls (about 30 pages, far more interesting). From the title of the chapter, you would never guess what was really hiding in there. Would it not have made more sense to organize the chapter around VB controls, and leave any discussion of comments (if you must) as illustrations for some of the principles introduced.

The index is even worse. I remembered reading something useful in a different chapter that, of course, had nothing to do with the useful nugget I was looking for. There was absolutely no hint of the topic, under any related name, whatsoever, in the index. An example - I needed to look up some syntax for the declaration of variables in a procedure. There is no index entry for "declaration", or the "DIM" command, or even the word "variables". On the other hand, there are 27 index entries under the topic of "comments", such as "comments - single quote and" or "comments - reviewing toolbar and - buttons of" (3 levels! lots of detail!).

One gets the feeling that the editor at SYBEX didn't have a clue, and used some auto-indexing routine that generated a totally useless index.

This book needs to be fed into a Pivot Table and completely re-sorted by someone who knows what they're doing.

SYBEX, I want my money back!

When you use "Developer" you expect to find out something about the program that is not contained in other books. This was not the case here. The book spends a good three-hundred pages going through Excel conventions that could be considered "groundwork" for development but also "User's" material. The book never really get's beyond the "groundwork", however. I learned nothing that I couldn't have figured out with MSDN and some "hacking around."

Get Using Excel Visual Basic For Application by Jeff Webb for great introduction to Excel Development.

Deliriously happy with my Access2000 Developer's Handbook set I bought this book without looking any further convinced the DevH series are the best... and they are... just not for Excel. Calling this a developers handbook insults any serious developer. Don't get me wrong, this IS a good book on Excel, it just worthless if you want to get some real coding going on there.

I can't believe that someone is obviously trying to plant reviews on this book. Looking at the two recent reviews from LA and WA I'm convinced they were on crack when they wrote them (or at least exclamation point happy--as both reviews make liberal usage of).

Also, an obvious attempt was made to casually point out the books strong points-which there are none. The help file information is relatively weak in its depth (like the rest of the book) and the Web publishing stuff has to be a laugh. How much further can "Sava As..." Web Page, be taken?

Don't be fooled by the corny five star reviews, this book is nothing short of worthless.

... anyone can get a book published. Sybex needs to learn that they can't just throw out a book for every computer topic that exists. Fortunately, I didn't buy this book. I spent about 10 minutes reviewing it at a bookstore and realized that it will be pretty much useless for anyone wo wants to learn Excel programming. Pass this one by. There are plenty good ones available.

This book try's to sell itself as being for `developers', and claims to be an `intermediate/advanced' level. In fact the book covers the basics almost exclusively, with lots of white space and large, useless, screen-captures. By page 121 it's just got as far as IF-THEN-ELSE statements. There is absolutely nothing in this book that isn't explained better, and in more detail, in the Excel Help file.

The book does not have any "Developer" topics, but is at the intermediate level. It does clearly present the topics and the index is complete. Fatally, it suffers from the standard computer book complaint of bulk over quality.

This is a must have book for those who are advanced users of Excel. You do not have to be a programmer to appreciate the advice and instruction found between the pages of this reference book. Gaining an understanding of VBA can only expand your Excel skills. This tool can assist even the beginner with adding automation to their Workbooks. Even if you only write your macros to complete the mundane tasks and save time, this book is an excellent guide.

Chris ...

This is the book I've been waiting for. I develop small applications for a variety of clients to streamline their operations. Some of them have quite a high turnover of staff so it is very important that new staff have access to some help when they run my applications. This book showed me how to control the office assistant so that helpful text is given at the time the user needs it. I haven't seen this in other Excel VBA books. I also know how to build a full-blown help facility for larger projects - also missing from other books. I also found it helpful for Web based projects as it shows how to spruce up excel spreadsheet for web publication - and how to publish them too! As you can tell I'm really excited about this book. It has been worth it's weight in gold as I've used quite a lot of the material from the CD with moderate adjustments - and it all works too!

This is the book for me! I was an Excel user that wanted to start writing macros but didn't know where to start. I have now achieved this and I've macro-ized as the author puts it all my mundane tasks and I'm now onto Web publishing and making the Office Assistant dance and say helpful things while my application runs. It's the only book I know that shows how to develop a Help facility. Yes I've got to the end and feel I've achieved so much!