Rating: 
Summary: Learning REALbasic: Newburg vs. Tejkowski
Review: 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".
Rating:
Summary: Learning REALbasic: Newburg vs. Tejkowski
Review: 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".
Rating:
Summary: Learning REALbasic: Newburg vs. Tejkowski
Review: 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".
Rating:
Summary: RealBasic for Dummies is GREAT!!!!!!!!!!
Review: 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.
Rating: 
Summary: Very basic book (pun intended)
Review: I did not like the book. However I still give it three stars, it is exactly what it was reported to be. I had programmed in BASIC many years earlier, so I found the book to be very much below the level I was looking for. If you are an experianced C/C++ programmer with a little knowlege of BASIC, then I would recommend "REALBasic: the difinitive guide" (O'Reilly). However, if REALBasic is your first programming experiance, then this may be the book for you.
Rating:
Summary: I've been waiting for this BOOK!!!
Review: 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.
Rating: 
Summary: A very good tutorial!
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 or 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: REALbasic for Dummies (with CD-ROM)
Review: Informative, but needed more in depth coding examples. After reading the book cover to cover twice, I still felt unprepared to do anything more than an extremely basic (no pun intended) application. I would have like to have seen a little more programming examples of the concepts presented. I definately would recommend this book over the tutorial from Real software. It is worth the money, but dont expect to be an application wizard after reading it.
Rating:
Summary: REALbasic fundamentals.
Review: REALbasic is your typical Mac application. Powerful and yet incredibly easy to use. I don't pretend to be a
serious programmer - yet !! :-) But with REALbasic, I'm sure I could be if I worked at it. Unfortunately I don't think that
this book is the one to take me all the way. Don't get me wrong. This book was the first I've read on the subject and
I don't think I could have asked for a finer introduction. I'm very very glad that I purchased and read this book. This book provides an excellent foundation from which to move onto other books that might perhaps provide a more in depth coverage of the actual language itself. Experiment with this book.....if you like what you see and want to develop your skills......read others.
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