Customer Reviews

Learning REALbasic through Applications (Charles River Media Programming)

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

I have never seen a published book with more errors: whole sections of sample code in the wrong places, wrong values in some examples, misplaced order of data entry. Thank goodness I was armed with a general knowledge of REALbasic before I started trying to use this. In addition, explanations are thin, and helpful tips (like cutting and pasting repetitious code) and almost non-existent. The projects are worthwhile, though, if you can get past the poor production of this book.

I had anticipated this book for a while, and unfortunately it was quite disappointing. Like the previous comment, I had noticed a section where the sample code was a duplicate of the previous chapter. That's an error too large to miss during editing. Another error I noticed was that one of the shortcut keys listed was incorrect. I couldn't figure out why something wasn't working out correctly, until I happened to try using different key combinations. The author had printed control, when he meant the command key.

Also, the sample applications listed were a bit too rudimentary. I felt the author had good intentions, but the applications could have been a little more robust. It truly seems like the book was rushed to print. Sadly, ended up returning the book, because it's definitely not worth the cover price.

I would steer clear of this book. I bought it on a whim at a brick and mortar store, because it was the only bok on REALbasic they had. Caveat Emptor. I wish I could sell this book now, I didn't even open the CD on it.
Content is lacking, full of errors and generally as helpful as a stick in the eyeball.

I really wanted this book to be great. I have been looking for up-to-date- info on RealBasic... and while I think this book is fine for the novice or the beginner RBr, in my mind it is a bit too simple.

The best example that I can think of is the Chapter on Screen Saver... well, it isn't writing a ScreenSaver, it is in fact code for taking a snapshot of the desktop.

The 'Web Browser' chapter is merely an examination of the ShowURL function.... useful for sure, bbut hardly in depth... in fact, the chapter can be summed with ONE LINE.

I really wish that the definative guide were current, but I settled for purchasing the second edition in stead.

Again, I don't feel like this book is bad, just not really living up to it's name.

FH

REALbasic is a good introductory language that lets you create programs on one platform for multiple platforms. This book, "Learning REALbasic Through Applications" is filled with typos and errors that makes it useless and frustrating for a real beginner. I helped my son through all of the chapters and exercises in this book but we were only able to do it because I already am a programmer and already know REALbasic.

The author, Clayton E. Crooks, is a crook, no doubt, because he asks for money without having done a job of proofing the book or even testing his example code. It reads like he rushed to write the whole book in a sitting and never bothered to actually run the code in the projects or examples from the pages of the book. The result is the code is filled with errors as given and horribly frustrating for the student.

As to the projects he gives, a few of them are interesting but a lot of them are trivially boring. My son was very disappointed with the depth of the projects. They were all extremely short, which makes the large numbers of errors in the code even less excusable. My solution was to expand on each chapter with interesting additions but Mr. Crooks really should have done that in the book. At the very least, in the end of each chapter he should have made suggestions for further activities.

My son and I both found this book to be very disappointing. I got it on sale for $5 and it still felt like a rip-off. The original price of $41.95 is outragious for such a piece of junk.

Sorry. The predominant view has proven once again to be justified. I'm sorry I let my optimism lead me to purchase this book to find out. It really is a badly edited collection of unexplained and useless gimmicks. If there is a concept presented that has any worth in learning to write your own code, than it is extremely well hidden among the error laden examples.

I have every book on RealBasic available now, and the O'Reilly book is the only one that truly helps one learn the product AND programming. On the other hand, Eric's book is good to build confidence without much lasting programming value. This book cannot claim to teach or build confidence - although I found it an interesting exercise debugging and proofreading the text and code - representing perhaps the only real experience to be gained through the use of this text.

This book is poorly written. It is hard to follow along and reproduce the examples. Worse still, some examples do not work as shown. Plus, the book is way out of date. Save your money.... and find yourself another RB book.

Out of curiousity, I read through enough of this book in Borders to see that it's in right in line with the [lack of] quality I expect from Charles River Media. Anyone who's mistakenly purchased any book from this publisher already knows what a waste of trees their books are, and now so do you. I give this 1 star because the pull-down menu doesn't have an option for no star at all.

If you're already a crack programmer in some language (any at all), get Matt Neuburg's book (O'Reilly). If you're more of a novice to application programming, start with Erick's For Dummies book.

If you are brand new to programming, then this is a good book to start with. Think of this book as a RealBasic product brochure with examples. Working through the chapters gives you a quick survey of the kinds of things you can do with RealBasic, and it teaches you the RealBasic programming approach. Once you have worked some of the examples, you will find that you will start having your own ideas for building new programs. If you get a little more serious, then pick up Matt Neuburg's book and look closely at the documentation that RealBasic provides along with the program. The RealBasic tutorials may seem tedious, but they really are excellent for learning the basics of RealBasic programming.

Reading some of the other reviews here would make me think that this book is a lemon. Not so. It has it's place for the beginning programmer, or someone who wants a fast survey of RealBasic. It's not very detailed. It won't help you very much if you want to go beyond the examples, but that's what Matt Neuburg's book and the included language reference are for.

I used to program on a trs-80 as a kid, so anything in terms of visual programing like this seems like science fiction at times. I liked this book, it shows how to flex SOME of the muscle of the RealBasic engine in smart and informative ways. I would say the cover price is a little much. That's why used book stores do business with Amazon. If you are new to RealBasic, I would say get the book, but not for $40.