Rating: 
Summary: The REAL Thing
Review: 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.
Rating: 
Summary: The Dummies and the O'Reilly's book: Which one to buy?
Review: 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.
Rating: 
Summary: good supplement for experienced programmers
Review: I'm a professional programmer who recently started using REALbasic. I wanted a book to tell me how to do specific things - not teach me programming. This book, by itself, is not the book. But then neither is the documentation that comes with REALbasic. Whenever I wanted to do something different, I found myself flipping between this book, the Developers Guide and the Language Reference. Usually I needed bits of info from each. In fairness, perhaps a cover-to-cover reading of the book would have given me a better foundation with the language. As it is, if you want to get started fast and learn as you go, this book is a useful supplement - but not a complete reference.
Rating:
Summary: good supplement for experienced programmers
Review: I'm a professional programmer who recently started using REALbasic. I wanted a book to tell me how to do specific things - not teach me programming. This book, by itself, is not the book. But then neither is the documentation that comes with REALbasic. Whenever I wanted to do something different, I found myself flipping between this book, the Developers Guide and the Language Reference. Usually I needed bits of info from each. In fairness, perhaps a cover-to-cover reading of the book would have given me a better foundation with the language. As it is, if you want to get started fast and learn as you go, this book is a useful supplement - but not a complete reference.
Rating: 
Summary: Not the definitive guide
Review: I've been using Realbasic for many years. If you are expecting to actually use Realbasic to build practical applications, this book will not be of use to you. As others have stated, if you are beginner, this book will not be very helpful to you. I've seen some really helpful books for learning and using Java and VB, but unfortunately Realbasic doesn't have the same quality of books out there (nor will it ever, likely). The omissions in this book are glaring, the writing style unnecessarily obtuse. The Realbasic through Applications book and the Realbasic for Dummies books are better, although still not great. You'll do no better than to simply look through Realbasic code samples freely available on the web, and ask questions on the mailing lists instead of needing to purchase any Realbasic book.
Rating:
Summary: The title of this book says it all
Review: If you're already a programmer, particularly if you're coming from a "visual" environment such as VB, Cafe, Flash, etc, this is the only REALbasic book you will need to buy. Matt's book is exactly the solid programming reference you would expect from O'Reilly. This plus Real's own Language Reference and mailing list archives are all the literature an experienced programmer will need. If you want to start with more basics, consider the Dummies book as a first read. It's just as worthy a book, but the patience Erick takes in the examples will be appreciated by a more novice programmer.
Rating:
Summary: The title of this book says it all
Review: If you're already a programmer, particularly if you're coming from a "visual" environment such as VB, Cafe, Flash, etc, this is the only REALbasic book you will need to buy. Matt's book is exactly the solid programming reference you would expect from O'Reilly. This plus Real's own Language Reference and mailing list archives are all the literature an experienced programmer will need. If you want to start with more basics, consider the Dummies book as a first read. It's just as worthy a book, but the patience Erick takes in the examples will be appreciated by a more novice programmer.
Rating:
Summary: REALBasic The Very Defintive Guide
Review: Like previous reviews have said, this is not a book for beginners who are looking to get started with RB, (go buy REALBasic for Dummies for this.)
Otherwise this is the very definitive guide to REALBasic.
First of this is not a book does not focus on how to create specific programs such as graphics editors with RB(although I wish there was such a book) but how to program with it.
(If Bob Nicholson had read the front of the book, it states quite clearly that this is not a graphics cookbook, or any other cookbook for the simple reason for this is that it is impossible to know exactly want you want to create with RB.)
Otherwise I have found myself referring to this book time and time again.
If you have a reasonable knowledge of REALbasic, and want to take it to the next level then this is the book for you.
Rating:
Summary: Even better than I'd hoped for!
Review: Matt's descriptions are excellent. Basic enough for a beginner to understand but with lots of substance and insight to keep the old timers intrigued. He uses real world examples with practical uses and provides a plethora of sample code on his web site. Matt has probed every nook and cranny of RealBasic and his book provides an excellent tour of how to get the most out this wonderful tool.
Rating:
Summary: Too many words
Review: My programming experience = nil. I am not counting AppleScript, HTML, JavaScript. When I bought this book I was hoping to get some help. Reviews were great. I found that: the purpose for writing the book was to show off the richness of authors vocabulary. He didn't want to teach. He wrote it to ramble about RB, his point of view on certain aspects of RB. He doesn't explain almost anything in a simple, straight forward way. The examples of code are very limited. I retyped more than ten of them and not even one (!) of them worked! Program either froze or crashed or just didn't compile. I am better off using the Developers Guide from RB and Language Reference. Some tutorials on line are also helpful. This is an example how a "guide" shouldn't be written. I am just a beginner - I may be wrong. The book might have been written for RB gurus. I didn't learn almost anything from it.
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