Rating: 
Summary: Dips you in the VBscript pond & more (keyword dip)
Review: A useful book for me, introducing me into VBScript quite well, but it will make you more of a 'Jack of all trades & master of none'. Each chapter gives you a dip into VBscript, HTAs, HTCs, ASP, and a whole bunch of other things I never knew about! Not a bad way to embroil ones-self into these technologies but not terribly in-depth. MSDN's site gave me more beefy examples I could use for my scripting needs. The reference section was OK at best. If you need a good warmup on VBscript and where it can live & do it's things, not a bad book.
Rating: 
Summary: The Best VBScript Book
Review: Although there are many books on scripting, there are only a handful of books about VBScript. Of those that do focus on VBScript, many pages are devoted to server-side web scripting with active server pages, which is amply covered by the many titles on ASP. This book by contrast is current, complete, and packed with chapters about all the cool things you can do with VBScript, including COM objects and how to write your own, regular expressions, HTML applications (*very* cool), ADO, how to build the Script Control into your applications, and yes, ASP. That's the first 500 pages. The remaining 280+ pages are references and appendices that add depth. I have seen no other reference in print or online from Microsoft that goes to these lengths to elucidate what can be done with VBScript.
The writing style is very approachable, and the Wrox Press model of a team of qualified people tackling different topics works very well (11 authors and 7 technical reviewers). These people really know the topics, and the book is well edited. An excellent value.
Rating:
Summary: VBScript Programmer's Reference
Review: 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.
Rating: 
Summary: Pretty Good Reference Book
Review: I bought this book because I was getting into ASP development and needed to learn the basics of VBScript. The first part of the book does a great job of teaching the student. It spells out variables, loops, etc. all the basics. It provided me with a firm foundation for future development in ASP.
I give this book a 4-star rating because I did not have utility for the remainder of the book detailing information on Windows Scripting.
Rating:
Summary: Great Book
Review: I have read VBScript Programmer's Reference. I would to congratulate the team who put this book together. Its so well written I was programming within the day. Not just a "Hello World" program but a program of substance that opened files, validated them, wrote events in the event log etc.
The book is easy to follow and the short introduction to programming most useful for non-programmers like me and my team.
Unfortunately, for me, the book will lead to more work for me and my team of technical mainframe support staff converting mainframe legacy JCL to VBScript. I will be ordering two more copies of the book for my team and I am sure that they will gain much from it.
Even after a few days, members of staff from programming teams keep borrowing the book I am now forced to lie about its location (under my desk).
If I had a criticism I would say that Cscript should be covered in a little more detail, but its only minor point and I found the information I was looking for on the Web.
I bought 3 books on VBScript, the others are not bad books but they are written with a rocket scientist in mind and assume that the reader is competent in programming and modern scripting techniques. Thankfully your book saved the day and I actually enjoyed reading it. I get the impression that the team that put it together also enjoyed that task, it seems to come across in the text anyways. Its a great book.
Rating:
Summary: Decent overall.
Review: Overall, VBScript: Programmer's Reference is pretty good and fairly useful. High points:
- Wide range of relevant topics.
- Good examples.
- Extensive appendicies. Low points:
- Already out of date.
- Worthless and frustrating index.
- Lots of undefined acronymns.
- Discontinuity of writing styles between the many authors. I have been writing embedded software for a long time, but am relatively new to VBScript and Windows. I found this book to be useful for me, but I suspect that there are probably better books out there.
Rating:
Summary: Decent overall.
Review: Overall, VBScript: Programmer's Reference is pretty good and fairly useful. High points:
- Wide range of relevant topics.
- Good examples.
- Extensive appendicies. Low points:
- Already out of date.
- Worthless and frustrating index.
- Lots of undefined acronymns.
- Discontinuity of writing styles between the many authors. I have been writing embedded software for a long time, but am relatively new to VBScript and Windows. I found this book to be useful for me, but I suspect that there are probably better books out there.
Rating:
Summary: for browsers
Review: Perhaps the most common use of VBScript is for client side scripting for browsers. Given IE's 90%+ dominance of this market, and that it supports only VBScript and JScript, you can well see the need for a book like this one.
The authors point out that VBScript has broadly equivalent functionality to JavaScript and JScript. It makes sense to choose VBScript or JScript over JavaScript if you are coding to browsers. But why VBScript over JScript? The book suggests that if you are hailing from a VB background, then the transition to VBScript can be relatively painless. Helped of course by these authors.
Hopefully, you should not have too much trouble with VBScript, whatever your background. It is a simpler language than C++, Java or C#. Plus, the style of the typical problem tackled in the book is such that a program of 100 lines or less usually suffices. You may not notice it, but such choices of problems are strategic. If solutions were thousands of lines long, then stronger procedural or object oriented techniques would be useful, leading to other languages.
Rating:
Summary: Subs, functions, and procedures are all there!
Review: Subs,procedures, and functions all covered in the book in Chapter 3. "A reader" doesn't read much! I think Wrox and 1000's of other people who buy may noticed if Subs and Functions missing! One of best books I buy. But I would like Appendix A (BEST VBScript reference ever!) to be alphabetical - easier to look up, but I love book anyway. I recommend to everyone.
Rating:
Summary: Make Sure You Get the Second Edition!
Review: The 2nd Edition of the VBScript Programmer's Reference is a total rewrite of the first edition. Unfortunately, a lot of people are confused because both the first and second editions are for sale, and it can be hard to tell which one you are buying. Do not buy the old first edition! The new second edition is a much better book. I am a co-author of both editions, so I can say that with confidence.
Please check the page you are on and make sure you are purchasing the Second Edition. You can identify the Second Edition because the cover has three faces on it, and because there are only three authors, not a dozen. The Second Edition of the VBScript Programmer's Reference is the best VBScript book available. You won't be disappointed!
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