VBScript Programmer's Reference

In this day and age, finding good CURRENT books on VBScript is becoming more and more of a holy quest. In the last year, only two come to mind: this book by Adrian Kingsley-Hughes et al (Oct. 99) and VBScript in a Nutshell by Paul Lomax (April 2000).Well, I have both of these books. They are both very very good and both are very deserving of their overall high ratings.Even so, I find myself using the VBScript Programmer's Reference a bit more than the other book. It is very comprehensive, very clear and I find myself having to pull it off the shelf time and time again. It's that good.So, VBScripters out there, I recommend that if you only have enough money for two books on VBScript, purchase VBScript Programmer's Reference and VBScript in a Nutshell. I recommend that you buy VBScript Programmer's Reference first!

I've been building sites for 3 years using JavaScript, but recently was commissioned to build a site using VBScript and ASP. I bought this book and ASP 2.0 by Wrox. The first 4 chapters of this book taught me sufficient VBScript to create a custom site virtually from nothing. There are 4 great COM chapters that were invaluable to me.I was so impressed that I bought a copy for each of my team. They all love the book too.

This is far more than the standard reference book I'm used to. This is a tome of immeasurable quality. I was expecting a dry and cold text that I would refer to occassionaly; instead I got an excellent tutorial. The first 4 chapters define all the basics, and then there follow chapters on WSH, HTA's, COM, ADO, and many other topics that I wouldn't expect a reference book to cover. The book also has 12 appendix chapters which go far beyond my expectations. All-in-all a very thorough, well written and reasonably priced book.

I am not normally a fan of multi-author text books. Unless they are very carefully edited, you wind up getting beat up with words, hearing 3 or 4 different renditions of the same material.But I found "VBScript Programmer's Reference to be a useful book. I appreciated the section on Remote Scripting, which I put to good use in an intranet (MSIE5) web development project.Anyone getting started in web development will find a maze of rapidly emerging software technologies to sort through. I encountered two problems that I simply did not know how to address. So I e-mailed a few of the authors of the text, hoping to get a reply.To my surprise and delight, each one responded to my request and got me moving forward! I know that WROX cannot promise this kind of followup from all authors for all of its texts, but the folks who wrote VBScript are good guys who want to help. For the book and the remarkable followup they deserve at least 5-stars.