VB & VBA in a Nutshell: The Language: The Language

Since you may not be familiar with the "Nutshell" series books by this publisher, I will start by telling you that this book is strictly a reference intended for the intermediate or advanced VB programmer. If you are new to the language, do not purchase this book expecting to learn how to program. You already know your If..Then..Else and Select Case statements. What this book does is give you a quick reference to find that date function that you have never used or remind you the exact syntax of a Property Set procedure.The bulk of the book (80-85%) is the language reference alphabetized and some appendices dividing the language reference up by other methods, such as similar functions/methods, data types, operators, etc. Chapter 4 "Class Modules" contains a concise, 20-page refresher on how to object-orient your VB with classes. I had studied a few other books on OOP VB but still don't have it down pat, this chapter will be my guide until I can do classes in my sleep. Very little covered on API functions but also a great section on ActiveX (creating, registering, unregistering, Controls, EXE vs. DLLs).Probably the biggest question I faced was: "Why get this book when I have an MSDN subscription at work?" This book is supposed to pick up where that takes off. I hate searching through the whole MSDN for one method. It can take forever. Plus, this book will travel with me.On a side note, I'm studying for my MCSD and this book has been very valuable. From my past experience with Microsoft exams, you never know when you are going to get a specific question about a particular function, property and method and have to know the default value, or which property would not belong to an object. If you have never used it before, you'll have no idea. It's no fun to actually "study" such a reference book, but this book is very detailed and comprehensive about what everything does and how it could be used. I know the more I thumb through this thing, the better the chance I have of nailing a question on a test. Would make a great complimentary book to the MCSD VB exams 70-156 and 70-155.

I am very new to programming. I ignored the previous recommendations mentioning that this book was not for begginers and I ordered it anyway. I have read the first three chapters straight through and used much of the book as a reference which I beleive it was meant to be. I found this book together with Access 2002 Desktop Developer's Handbook and Access 97 Macro and VBA Handbook gives me a better understanding of the VBA language. The book is informative and is a fairly easy read. I would recommend this book to any beginner that is serious about learning VBA.

The organization is the best thing about this book, There is a small reference section for each command with the specs on usage, the syntax, and things to watch out for. However, it tries to combine VBA and Visusal BAsic and VB6 and it often gets confusing. It also does not differentiate the Word VBA, Excel VBA, Outlook VBA or the other flabors of VBA that are the most common use becaue that iis what is used for Microsoft Offi9ce Applications. The worst thing about the book as a reference or for instruction is the lack of code examples showing the different syntax permutations. So for me, it neither worked as an instructional book or a reference.

I LIKE!

This book is old, but thankfully VBA hasn't changed much over the years. I wanted to understand VBA from a more rigorous programming perspective (as opposed to just creating macros with the record button). I wanted to understand syntax, structure, etc. This book provides all those details and also functions as a handy reference.

You need more than one nutshell, but a good book to have

Good reference.

Great review. Which I suppose is the purpose. I suppose I was wanting a little bit more "best practices" and a little less encyclopedic content.

This book certainly fills in the blanks. The blanks are, in the case of someone learning VBA, the finer points of the generic parts of the VBA language. For the VB6 programmer it goes beyond just knowing how to use the VB6 IDE to create forms and menus.The key word in the title is "Language", if you want to know how to use the Visual Studio to create a program and the basics of programming design this is not the book for you. Nor if you are looking to know which Microsoft application object (and its properties and methods) to use.The book certainly gives you a peek under the VBA/VB6 bonnet and helps to explain some of the quirks. The "Programming Tips & Gotchas" in the Reference would have saved me a few frustrating hours (particularly with arrays) had I read some of them before.I have been looking to use some of my VBA code in VB6 and this book certainly brings them to together - from a language view point.

I just bought the Kindle version of this book. The index layout at the front is a complete mess - unusable! Beyond the front cover the inside next page reveals the book title to be "VB.NET in a Nutshell", not "VB & VBA in a Nutshell" ! There is NOTHING about VBA in this book! This book was mis-sold to me. I will report to Local Trading Standards.I WANT MY MONEY BACK! But I can find no way to contact Amazon to complain.I have to put in one star as Amazon thinks no review can be less than 1 star!. Please take my star as a negative value.

The reference section, which forms the bulk of this book, is excellent. But I would have preferred a little more detail in the few opening chapters, particularly on Class Modules.I find O'Reilly books to be always of a good quality.

Dates back to 1998 but still a very useful book.Just really a reference of all the properties of VBA up to VB6.Not a tutorial.

Excellent!