Customer Reviews

REALBasic: TDG: The Definitive Guide, 2nd Edition (Definitive Guides)

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

After more than twenty years programming computers, I decided to learn REALbasic, as I wanted more control over the presentation of my FileMaker databases. I bought REALbasic, the "Standard" version (mistake #1 - it isn't full-featured). Then I bought Newburg's book (mistake #2 - too difficult to start with). Then I upgraded REALbasic to "Professional" (good move), and bought Tejkowski's "REALbasic for Dummies" (at last I could understand!) Don't do as I did. If you REALLY want to learn REALbasic, get the "Professional" version, and BOTH Tejkowski's and Newburg's books. Start with TejKowski; it reads easily; do the examples. When you're through, use Newburg's book to give you the philisophical understanding, and as a reference. The manuals that come with REALbasic are well done, but still - start with "REALbasic for Dummies".

I studied programming in school but had trouble grasping many of the concepts of programming, so dropped my studies, but continued trying to learn these past few years on my own, venturing in to Visual C++, Visual Basic, and a few others. I gave REALbasic a shot just for fun, and was doing ok, but the Definitive Guide has taken me farther in the month since I got it than in the past years with any language. Now, finally, I'm comfortable enough to purchase the full language and have fun with it.

This book is much better than many of the textbooks I've been through and other books I've purchased for various languages.

I work in the economic research and finance industry, and while I have some experience with Excel VBA, I am by no means a programmer. I was thus already more or less familiar with object-oriented programming (OOP) and the overall syntax of the Basic language. I had started programming with REALbasic for only a few weeks, and I had purchased both the Dummies and O'Reilly's book. Both have their strengths and weaknesses.

Dummies: If you already understand OOP and how to write commands in Basic, then you won't need to read half of book. However, Tejkowski takes the reader gently through different topics in REALbasic and actually shows the reader--step by step--on how to do this and that.

O'Reilly's: Much more theoretical and advanced. It actually has less to do with showing the reader how to do something step by step than discussing good programming techniques. Expect to invest the time and patience in reading and understanding it.

The Dummies book is a good start for anyone completely new to REALbasic. I found half the book not useful for my purposes, but it's still a good reference when you want to do certain things, say set up a database. The O'Reilly's book is also a must to understand *why* you need to do certain things in REALbasic. The manuals included with REALbasic are good, and the step-by-step tutorial is excellent, but the O'Reilly book fills in the theoretical underpinnings.

I would recommend both books to anyone who's serious about programming with REALbasic. Assess your programming skills and background honestly to determine which book you should start with.

(The following review is aimed at people wanting to learn programming for the first time).

If you have never programmed before, know this: Programming is not easy, period. Do not expect to pick up this book thinking in a short time you will be pumping out the next killer app. You do need to have a fair amount of intelligence to grasp programming concepts, and following this up with loads of experience makes you good at it. "REALbasic : The Definitive Guide" is a good start on this trip. It makes a good attempt at introducing programming to the novice, but at the same time, it is definitive in that besides giving a thorough rundown on each and every part that makes up the REALbasic programming environment, it also touches on the many nuances (and bugs) that make it different from others. Object-orientation seems to be the catch-cry of the day, and the simple explanation given here will give you a good basic understanding of its principles. Why did I give the book four stars and not five? Two reasons: One - a CD-ROM with the latest REALbasic demo (at time of printing), and your usual code examples etc. would have been nice; Two - I found it disconcerting at times that concepts or commands referred to hadn't been explained yet (a pointer to its existence or explanation further on in the book would have sufficed). However, these are only small gripes and should not influence your decision to buy the book. I would recommend this book as an essential tool to the novice and intermediate programmer, but experienced REALbasic programmers would still find it a good/thorough reference.

This book is not, as several other reviewers have said, a beginner's guide to programming; instead it serves as a reference to the RealBasic programming language. It covers everything in the online reference, but also adds more examples, tutorials, and explanations on some of the vaguer points. Many of the programs I have written could not have been completed without the aid of this book, and much of the help I give to others still refers to this book. The book is also written in a manner that will get you to think inside of the code you write, and this will help you to further expand your own knowledge without having to rely on other people's example code.

If you want to learn from scratch how to program in Realbasic, don't get this book, but if you need help on anything to do with RealBasic, then this is the book for you. Use it as a dictionary or encyclopaedia, and you will not be sorry you bought it. Written by a man who knows what he's doing, and will help you to gain insight into programming on general, it's still serving me several years and many programs after its purchase.

REALbasic is one of the best programming languages I've ever had the opportunity to use, and Matt Neuburg's book, "REALbasic, The Definitive Guide" is a MUST HAVE for every REALbasic programmer.

Mr. Neuburg does a wonderful job of detailing the in's and out's of REALbasic. He covers all the territory from beginning to advanced programming, and has a treasure trove of examples, tidbits, and areas to avoid for REALbasic programmers. Not only has it helped speed up my time coding, but it's eliminated countless hours of frustration that would have been wasted otherwise.

The price of the book is practically a give-away; I've paid three times more for programming books in the past that haven't been nearly as half as helpful. I applaud Mr. Neuburg's compilation. The world of computing would be a better place for everyone if all programming books were this well written.

REALbasic : The Definitive Guide is a must have reference to the REALbasic language, possibly more complete than Real Software's own documentation. While it is a great beginning guide for the experienced programmer who is new to REALbasic, the beginning programmer will stay confused throughout much of this book. It dives right in explaining the syntax of the language with little explaination of how to use it. A more step by step approach would have been more easily understandable.

That being said, I would recommend this book to anyone who is serious about programming for the Mac OS, but expect to use it as a complement to other learning sources, not as the main learning tool.

The editorial introduction claims: "If you've never programmed before, the book offers both a primer in REALbasic and an intuitive approach to the concepts of programming itself, as you quickly reach the ability to program every aspect of REALbasic." I would caution prospective purchasers against believing that this is the ideal introduction to REALbasic. Although this book is the most comprehensive of the third party publications on REALbasic, it is definitely not the starting point for beginning programmers who want to learn to program with this user-friendly development environment. Probably the best introductory materials are the company's own comprehensive set of materials. This book would be useful after one has mastered the rudiments of the program.

RealBasic is really great first programming language: it is easy, powerful (object oriented stuff and all) and generates fast and tight executables. With modest Java, BASIC and general programming skills I was really happy to find it and felt home immediately. After reading the PDF-books that came along the package, I still wanted some more in-depth-view, and came across to Neuburg's book.

I have developed a rule years ago: the thinner the programming book is, the better it usually is. Why? As the book gets thick, there is too much "static over the signal". This is true with this book as there definitely is too much text (as somebody said). With a little squeeze, the same stuff could be explained with half the text and it would make the book more usable and understandable. Also some tightening with the structure of the book could be in order.

I also would say that this book may not work for a beginner -- too difficult vocabulary and sometimes the concepts are presented in backward order. I have seen quite many other books explaining object oriented programmig concepts in much more understandable way -- sorry to say, as the realbasic usually is a beginner language this would have been very good forum.

If you have already done some realbasic stuff, want to know more and are somewhat fluent with the object oriented concepts, this could be a good book for you... a must, like it is for me.

Introduction of the language, general concepts and other basics stuff is in here too, but it might be better explained in some other source.

This is the best reference for REALBasic version 3, as of September 2005. However, you should be aware that REALBasic was at version 5.5.5 as of June, 2005, and REALBasic 2005 was released August of 2005.

Also, REALBasic started out on Macintosh platforms. It has now been ported to Windows -- but that's fairly recent, too. Thus, this book covers mostly Macintosh or generic applications.

O'Reilly seems to have dropped support for this book, too. This means there won't be another revision. However, if you can find it used, and you still want to use REALBasic on Windows, buy it. It's that good, and still useful.