Excel 2000 VBA : Programmers Reference

Rating:
Summary: Excellent Programmer's reference for professionals
Review: As a professional VBA programmer, I found this book to be an excellent reference. Although I use Excel 97, many of the programming concepts are the same as for Excel 2000. Each chapter maps well onto real-world issues that are likely to come up in an intensive programming environment. A good example of this is the chapter on International issues: I have recently been involved in developing a system installed in several countries across Europe, where the users previously had to switch to UK settings in order for the system to work. The book is not intended as a 'learn to program' guide, a genre which is too heavily catered for already, rather as a programmer's reference laid out in such a way as to find solutions to real-world problems quickly.

Rating:
Summary: Not for learning VBA - poor index also
Review: As the title states, it is a programmer's reference. Do not buy this book if you need to learn VBA. Also, it had many good tips, but I was not able to find them again with the index. I ended up making my own index to use as a reference.

Rating:
Summary: Overall, an Excellent Reference Book with Bonus Examples
Review: AT LAST!!!, a reliable reference BOOK. A self-taught VBA programmer, I know well the frustration of relying on Microsoft's 'help' for Visual Basic in Excel. Not knowing what to ask makes Microsoft's search engines just about useless, and the use of generic names for objects and variables in examples only adds to the confusion. Microsoft's 'on-line' manual lacks detail, adequate exemples, and is cumbersum when trying to review a previous sections.

Green's Excel 2000 VBA Programmers Reference has opened an entire new world for me as a programmer. Green approaches Excel 2000 VBA assuming the reader knows nothing. He presents one simple block of information at a time in a logical, building-block outline and avoids overwhelming the reader. His examples use actual code that when typed in, provide an instant result.

Green does a fair job in the daunting task of providing a quick reference to code through logical grouping, Table of Contents, Index, and page headings. However, to achieve the best results from Green's book, the reader must 'read' the book from start to finish otherwise, you'll be just as lost, maybe not as confused, as using Microsoft's on-line help. Green's organization is such that once finished, the reader will at least know which chapter to start looking for the right information.

I have been an avid supporter of Microsoft Office suites and firmly believe their potential goes largely untapped by businesses costing them thousands, if not millions of dollars in lost production and through the purchase of software which can be done by MS Office. Green's book allowed me to compose a script which translated data from an old database management system to a new system - a process which was quite complex in some areas. This self-help endeavor saved my company several thousand dollars in paying for the vendor to perform the work.

Just getting started, then get Green's book and invest in a few Post-It's to mark the really useful sections. You win, your company wins.

Rating:
Summary: COMMENTS FROM A BEGINNER
Review: AT LAST!!!, a reliable reference BOOK. A self-taught VBA programmer, I know well the frustration of relying on Microsoft's 'help' for Visual Basic in Excel. Not knowing what to ask makes Microsoft's search engines just about useless, and the use of generic names for objects and variables in examples only adds to the confusion. Microsoft's 'on-line' manual lacks detail, adequate exemples, and is cumbersum when trying to review a previous sections.

Green's Excel 2000 VBA Programmers Reference has opened an entire new world for me as a programmer. Green approaches Excel 2000 VBA assuming the reader knows nothing. He presents one simple block of information at a time in a logical, building-block outline and avoids overwhelming the reader. His examples use actual code that when typed in, provide an instant result.

Green does a fair job in the daunting task of providing a quick reference to code through logical grouping, Table of Contents, Index, and page headings. However, to achieve the best results from Green's book, the reader must 'read' the book from start to finish otherwise, you'll be just as lost, maybe not as confused, as using Microsoft's on-line help. Green's organization is such that once finished, the reader will at least know which chapter to start looking for the right information.

I have been an avid supporter of Microsoft Office suites and firmly believe their potential goes largely untapped by businesses costing them thousands, if not millions of dollars in lost production and through the purchase of software which can be done by MS Office. Green's book allowed me to compose a script which translated data from an old database management system to a new system - a process which was quite complex in some areas. This self-help endeavor saved my company several thousand dollars in paying for the vendor to perform the work.

Just getting started, then get Green's book and invest in a few Post-It's to mark the really useful sections. You win, your company wins.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent Read for anyone who uses Excel
Review: By far my favorite programming book, and here's my explanation:

I'm not sure if some of the people reviewing this book were supposed to be reading John Green's "Excel 2000 VBA : Programmers Reference" in the first place. If you have never used Excel, or never written your own script or program before, THIS BOOK IS NOT FOR YOU. This book was written for those who are either knowledgeable in Excel, wishing to learn programming, or vice versa, and its BY FAR THE BEST way to get there.

To give this book anything less than four stars (and I personally give it five) shows a complete lack of basic Excel and/or programming comprehension.

Excel 2000 VBA: Programmer's Reference starts with the basic concepts of functions (Subs), variables, loops, if statements, etc. But just like any other book from any other programming languange, don't expect to be fluent after reading the first 2 chapters.

Take time each day to read as much as you can, and run the examples in the VB editor. I have done 90% of the examples in the book, adapting many of them for my own use. Studying this text cover to cover is the best way to read it, as it is structured much like any college math course, where each chapter builds upon the chapter that precedes it. So avoid reading this book like an encyclopædia, as it will leave holes in your knowledge of the Excel Object Model.

The in-depth explanations of advanced concepts such as dynamic arrays, object referencing, names, API calls, and many more untapped resources of Excel are what make this book head and shoulders above the rest.

The index can be problematic for those not experienced in Object-Oriented programming, as it is organized by object types, and not alphabetically by each object. This thinking follows much more along that of a native programmer, so to proggers goes the advantage, but at the same time, press F2 within the Excel VBA editor, and you can read definitions for any object alphabetically. I believe John Green organized the index as it is intentionally, knowing that those not familiar with Excel could fall back on the Object reference in the VBA editor (via F2 on keyboard).

I think it is a shame that this book received several bads reviews, because in reading their posts, it seemed that not one of them should have been reading this book in the first place. It is a "Programmer Reference" as the name suggests. To those who didn't understand the most basic programming concepts and still decided to purchase the book, that is simply your fault for not reading the title, and is not the fault of John Green, whose masterpiece is a credit to the programming world at large, and another triumph WRT Excel.

Bravo, John... Bravo...

Rating:
Summary: Excellent Read for anyone who uses Excel
Review: By far my favorite programming book, and here's my explanation:

I'm not sure if some of the people reviewing this book were supposed to be reading John Green's "Excel 2000 VBA : Programmers Reference" in the first place. If you have never used Excel, or never written your own script or program before, THIS BOOK IS NOT FOR YOU. This book was written for those who are either knowledgeable in Excel, wishing to learn programming, or vice versa, and its BY FAR THE BEST way to get there.

To give this book anything less than four stars (and I personally give it five) shows a complete lack of basic Excel and/or programming comprehension.

Excel 2000 VBA: Programmer's Reference starts with the basic concepts of functions (Subs), variables, loops, if statements, etc. But just like any other book from any other programming languange, don't expect to be fluent after reading the first 2 chapters.

Take time each day to read as much as you can, and run the examples in the VB editor. I have done 90% of the examples in the book, adapting many of them for my own use. Studying this text cover to cover is the best way to read it, as it is structured much like any college math course, where each chapter builds upon the chapter that precedes it. So avoid reading this book like an encyclopædia, as it will leave holes in your knowledge of the Excel Object Model.

The in-depth explanations of advanced concepts such as dynamic arrays, object referencing, names, API calls, and many more untapped resources of Excel are what make this book head and shoulders above the rest.

The index can be problematic for those not experienced in Object-Oriented programming, as it is organized by object types, and not alphabetically by each object. This thinking follows much more along that of a native programmer, so to proggers goes the advantage, but at the same time, press F2 within the Excel VBA editor, and you can read definitions for any object alphabetically. I believe John Green organized the index as it is intentionally, knowing that those not familiar with Excel could fall back on the Object reference in the VBA editor (via F2 on keyboard).

I think it is a shame that this book received several bads reviews, because in reading their posts, it seemed that not one of them should have been reading this book in the first place. It is a "Programmer Reference" as the name suggests. To those who didn't understand the most basic programming concepts and still decided to purchase the book, that is simply your fault for not reading the title, and is not the fault of John Green, whose masterpiece is a credit to the programming world at large, and another triumph WRT Excel.

Bravo, John... Bravo...

Rating:
Summary: Wow!
Review: I bought this book a week ago and it has already greatly improved my macros!

I am an old hand at macros, right back to the Lotus 1-2-3 keystroke macros, and have been programming Excel for years. Nothing too complicated, just the sort of macros that save time on repetitive tasks, and tidy up text files from other systems.

What I now know is that I am effectively programming in the older macro languages, updated where needed - a very inefficient technique.

I have already been able to clean up my code, massively increasing the speed of my macros, and have discovered simple pieces of code that can replace the big workarounds that I had programmed...

..and I have only read 20% of the book!

An easy five stars!

Rating:
Summary: Different from the format usually used by wrox.
Review: I bought this book because I really like the format that wrox usually uses when they write books. If you liked the "Try it out" or the "How it works" sections in other Wrox books you might have read, you sure wont find it here. The book has a lot of information, but to someone who never programmed with Excel before, you really don't learn how to use it. Examples and explainations are not as detailed as such books written by Peter Write and John Connel. I guess because I read so many good "consistanly written" books from Wrox, I began to think of them as a place like McDonalds. You know exactly what to expect when you go there to buy. So what happened Wrox,whats with the change? I guess I'm going to wait in the future to read other people's reviews before I jump the gun and be the first one. I never thought I had to do that with Wrox. Now the book is useful, and I am getting stuff out of it. But I'm giving it a 2 because it doesn't compare to the other books usually written by Wrox. Maybe because its called a Programmers "Reference". In that case, why advertise that its good for "New VBA programmers"?

Rating:
Summary: skip this book
Review: I had a really a high expectations towards this book However, after reading a few chapters I realized that this is not a good guide for a self-study. The author does not provide complete examples, so I had to do more research just to discover a correct code. I will have to buy other book to find a better study guide.

Rating:
Summary: More useful than I'd hoped
Review: I had expected a simple, straitforward reference book, yet it goes the extra mile by explaining important concepts superbly. I use it now, more than I had thought I would. And I expect to continue to do so for some time. A must for the serious developer, especially if you need to weave the Excel Object Model seamlessly into a COM platform.