REALbasic? for Dummies? [With CDROM]

This book is by far the best book for learning RealBasic 5 as of this date (although there are a few coming out this spring that are supposed to be really good). I am generally not someone who likes the 'for Dummies' series books, they are usually garbage. Because of the lack of other books on the subject and because this is the only 'for Dummies' book that I have read that actually has useful information, I give it 5 stars. RealBasic is finally getting the recognition that it deserves and the cross platform compilation is something that should be implemented in a lot more programming environments. The RealBasic IDE is similar to Visual Basic and it is very simple yet extremely robust. The language itself is very flexible and overall it is a wonderful Rapid Application Development Environement for new comers. The examples in this book are very easy to follow and the context is easy to understand. The book does not get into too much detail which makes it perfect for someone who is brand new to programming. If you have any kind of experience programming, I would advise you to waite until this summer (2006) for a couple other books on RB coming out. This book does exactly what it claims to do, easily introduce NOVICE programmers to programming fundamentals with RealBasic.

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.

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 bought this book with little programming experience and in less than 2 hours I was writing REAL applications!!!!! WOW!!!! The book is informative and well written, this author really knows how to make his point clear and transfer that point to paper. I really can not say enough about how useful this book really is. BUY IT!!!! The Author, Erick Tejkowski, really knows his stuff.

I finally received my copy of RealBasic for Dummies and it's great. This is the book for anyone interested in Mac programming. The examples are clear and easy to understand. For those with no RealBasic experience this is a wonderful starting point, and those who already use RB should still get a lot out of it. I own the O'Reily's RB book, also, and find it helpful at times; but I find RB for Dummies much easier to understand and follow and think most RB users will agree.