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Thread: Professional Excel Development

  1. #1
    VBAX Mentor XL-Dennis's Avatar
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    Professional Excel Development

    Title:
    Professional Excel Development
    Authors:
    Stephen Bullen, Rob Bovey, John Green
    ISBN:
    780321262509
    Publisher:
    Addison & Wesley
    Year:
    2005

    Target group:
    Advanced users and developers

    Ranking:

    On a scale from 1 to 5 : 4

    On a scale from 1 to 10 : 7.5.


    Comments:
    The book is targeting power users and professional developers and if You consider Yourself to be in this group then this book is for you.

    It's a well written book, with a high technical level and with a good structure.

    But as with every book it has its strong parts as well as weak parts. Weak parts in terms of that some chapters are overviews only and do not give any depth on the subjects they cover.

    The chapters that cover best practice are all excellent. Here the authors share all their experience & knowledge by discussion application structures, structure for notation, advanced techniques for userforms and toolbars, error handling, debugging and many other things. The chapters also cover how to create and use add-ins and user defined functions (UDFs).

    The chapters that deal with VB 6.0 & Excel are all excellent too. A welcome contribution is that this book leverages many of the good techniques we use in MS VB 6.0 into Excel, especially when it comes to userforms.

    The book covers in a nice way how to create & use classes, create & use ActiveX DLL and front-loaders for Excel in MS VB 6.0.

    A whole chapter is devoted to Visual Tools for Office System (VSTO) and point also out all the present shortcomings of VSTO.

    As with every book nowadays this book also includes a chapter about XML which is well written and with a high technically level.


    If the above is what You're looking for then this book is a must have.

    The following chapters provide overviews of the subjects:
    Programming with Database
    Data Manipulation techniques
    Windows API
    Creating XLLs with C#

    If You're looking to get more then an introduction or a compressed picture on these subject then there exist other books that will give You more.

    The book uses an example, PETRAS Timesheet, to exemplify the subject that is covered in each chapter. Some readers will appreciate it very much while other (like me) will skip it. Anyway, PETRAS timesheet is also well worked out like the rest of the book.

    In order to work through both the PETRAS Timesheet case and all the examples the book is given You need to have access to the following softwares:

    * MS Office 2003 Professional (minimum requirement for the VSTO-chapter)
    * MS Visual Basic 6.0 (no longer available for sale from Microsoft)

    * Visual Studio.NET (VB.NET & C#)
    * VSTO (Separate tool that require Visual Studio.NET)

    Kind regards,
    Dennis
    Last edited by XL-Dennis; 03-07-2005 at 04:09 AM. Reason: Corrections - Misspelling
    Kind regards,
    Dennis

    ExcelKB | .NET & Excel | 2nd edition PED


  2. #2
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    Quote Originally Posted by XL-Dennis

    * MS Visual Basic 6.0 (no longer available for sale from Microsoft)
    Visual Basic 6 or Visual Studio 6 is still offerred by a number of online vendors, e.g., www.atomicpark.com. Also, check at www.pricegrabber.com for others.

  3. #3
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    You can still buy VB 6.0 straigh for Microsoft. You just need to buy VB.NET and then ask for downgrade and you will get VB 6.0. You may even get VB 2.0 by downgrading or joinning the Academic Alliance.
    Best Regards,

    Carlos Paleo.

    To every problem there is a solution, even if I dont know it, so this posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties.

    If Debugging is harder than writing a program and your code is as good as you can possibly make
    it, then by definition you're not smart enough to debug it.




    http://www.mugrs.org

  4. #4
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    Quote Originally Posted by Paleo
    You can still buy VB 6.0 straigh for Microsoft. You just need to buy VB.NET and then ask for downgrade and you will get VB 6.0. You may even get VB 2.0 by downgrading or joinning the Academic Alliance.
    Buying directly from a manufacturer is usually quite a bit more expensive.

  5. #5
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    Quote Originally Posted by Howard Kaikow
    Buying directly from a manufacturer is usually quite a bit more expensive.
    Totally agree !
    Best Regards,

    Carlos Paleo.

    To every problem there is a solution, even if I dont know it, so this posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties.

    If Debugging is harder than writing a program and your code is as good as you can possibly make
    it, then by definition you're not smart enough to debug it.




    http://www.mugrs.org

  6. #6
    VBAX Mentor XL-Dennis's Avatar
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    Any comments on the review itself or have You not read the book?
    Kind regards,
    Dennis

    ExcelKB | .NET & Excel | 2nd edition PED


  7. #7
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    Quote Originally Posted by XL-Dennis
    Any comments on the review itself or have You not read the book?
    i have the book.

  8. #8
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    I dont , but am starting to think on buying it.
    Best Regards,

    Carlos Paleo.

    To every problem there is a solution, even if I dont know it, so this posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties.

    If Debugging is harder than writing a program and your code is as good as you can possibly make
    it, then by definition you're not smart enough to debug it.




    http://www.mugrs.org

  9. #9
    Knowledge Base Approver VBAX Expert brettdj's Avatar
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    Thanks Dennis - sounds like a must have

  10. #10
    MS Excel MVP VBAX Tutor
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    Quote Originally Posted by Paleo
    I dont, but am starting to think on buying it.
    Stop thinking, man, and buy the book. My copy is already becoming dog-eared. I've used the Worksheet Design chapter extensively (and I've been designing worksheets for years), and also the VB6 chapter. I recently attended a conference on .Net which had several sessions on using .Net with Office: web services, XML, VSTO, all that stuff. Reading the two or three chapters ahead of time prepared me for the conference, at least not to fall completely for all of the rose-colored pronouncements.

    I should note that I helped with editing the book and I know the authors. But I still think this is the best book of its type.

    - Jon
    -------
    Jon Peltier, Microsoft Excel MVP
    Peltier Technical Services
    Tutorials and Custom Solutions
    http://PeltierTech.com/
    _______

  11. #11
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    Hi Jon,

    great, thank for the tip. Now I am looking for it on amazon.com to buy it.
    Best Regards,

    Carlos Paleo.

    To every problem there is a solution, even if I dont know it, so this posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties.

    If Debugging is harder than writing a program and your code is as good as you can possibly make
    it, then by definition you're not smart enough to debug it.




    http://www.mugrs.org

  12. #12
    VBAX Mentor XL-Dennis's Avatar
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    I should note that I helped with editing the book and I know the authors. But I still think this is the best book of its type.
    Yes, I agree that it's the best present book in its category, especially when this kind of book never been written before. But I also believe it's necessary to point out that You need to know Your stuff in order to take advantage of its content.

    BTW, who did the technical reviewing of the VSTO's and XLL's chapters?

    Personally I was disappointed with some chapters, especially the Database-chapter which I believe could have been much better if it had been targeting SQL Server and with an another approach. After all, Mr Bovey obviously work with SQL Server and it would have been nice to take part of his experience in this ares.

    FYI, I have had a detailed discussion about the book with Mr Bullen.

    Kind regards,
    Dennis
    Kind regards,
    Dennis

    ExcelKB | .NET & Excel | 2nd edition PED


  13. #13
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    The Princess VBAX Guru Anne Troy's Avatar
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    Phew!! Thank goodness!! Dennis never had a detailed discussion with me about MY book!!
    ~Anne Troy

  14. #14
    Moderator VBAX Guru Ken Puls's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Dreamboat
    Phew!! Thank goodness!! Dennis never had a detailed discussion with me about MY book!!
    Did he hurt your feelings, Anne?
    Ken Puls, CMA - Microsoft MVP (Excel)
    I hate it when my computer does what I tell it to, and not what I want it to.

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  15. #15
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    Not at all! I am not COMPLETELY proud of my book. I would like to put out a second edition, actually...
    ~Anne Troy

  16. #16
    VBAX Mentor XL-Dennis's Avatar
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    Dear Princess,

    Just let me know when You're about to update the book and I will happily review the first edition as input to the second edition

    However, I must be honest with You and mention the fact that "Word don't come easy to me"

    Kind regards,
    Dennis
    Kind regards,
    Dennis

    ExcelKB | .NET & Excel | 2nd edition PED


  17. #17
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    Thanks, Dennis!
    ~Anne Troy

  18. #18
    MS Excel MVP VBAX Tutor
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    You were supposed to say, "That's why you should read my book!"

  19. #19
    VBAX Mentor XL-Dennis's Avatar
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    Jon - thanks for making my day
    Kind regards,
    Dennis

    ExcelKB | .NET & Excel | 2nd edition PED


  20. #20
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    With so many authors here, maybe one way to generate revenues for the site could be to sell electronic versions of some books where a part of the profit would stay with the sites admins to buy prizes for users and of course the bigger part would go to the author. What do you think on this guys?
    Best Regards,

    Carlos Paleo.

    To every problem there is a solution, even if I dont know it, so this posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties.

    If Debugging is harder than writing a program and your code is as good as you can possibly make
    it, then by definition you're not smart enough to debug it.




    http://www.mugrs.org

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