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Issue 5.1

REVIEW

Book: Beginning REALbasic

Issue: 5.1 (September/October 2006)
Author: Marc Zeedar
Article Description: No description available.
Article Length (in bytes): 3,644
Starting Page Number: 8
Article Number: 5103
Related Web Link(s):

http://www.apress.com

Full text of article...

There have been a number of REALbasic books geared toward the beginning user. Most focus on specific programming tasks (building various projects) or the syntax of the REALbasic language. Others try to target both intermediate and advanced users with the sad result that the book doesn't really suit any market.

Beginning REALbasic is different in that it has less emphasis on teaching programming and more emphasis on teaching you about REALbasic itself. There are chapters on the product (the differences between the Standard and Professional versions, even how to navigate the REAL Software website), the IDE, developing a basic "Hello World" application, OOP, text and graphics, databases, etc. Variables, a core programming concept, are not even discussed until page 139 -- nearly the halfway point of the book!

But this isn't necessarily a bad thing. In fact, if you're completely unfamiliar with the world of REALbasic and want a quick tour of the product, features, language, and support resources, Beginning REALbasic is the ideal book for you.

This book serves as an excellent introduction to REALbasic. After reading it you'll understand the product's key features, benefits, and limitations. You'll do a little bit of coding -- enough to understand the basic REALbasic syntax and see how easy it is or isn't for you -- and you can experiment with the simple RB projects on the included CD. You'll learn tips on moving to REALbasic from Visual Basic, take a quick look at some advanced features, and learn about additional resources where you can learn more about REALbasic.

For the person wanting a quick way to get up to speed in REALbasic -- for instance, if you or your company are trying to decide if RB is worth the time to learn it -- this book makes it easy by gathering a lot of information for quick absorption.

On the other hand, if you've already got a book or two on REALbasic, or have been using RB for a while, I doubt you'd find much in this book that isn't covered elsewhere in more detail. I'd regard the programming-related chapters as mere introductions to concepts, not tutorials.

End of article.