Advice on Good Programming Books

[dakkon]

i have been using excel to do my finances for the last year or so, and i have just recently started to use more complicated equations, today i bought a book (excell 2002 power programming with VBA) which i hope will help me learn how to start using excell to its full potential. I have office 2004 mac edition.. I realiize the book I got is for 2002, and not for the mac but it was 10$ at half price books, and I though it would be a good place to get started..


so if someone would point me in the right direction as far as books I should possibly get or websites that will help me I would be greatful. Also I have little to no programing baackground, but I would like to learn as much as possible.

[OBP]

This site has brilliant Excel/VBA programmers. Also the "Help on the Net:Tech Support Guy" also has very good Excel programmers. In fact one of the best, Firefytr posts on both sites.
This site tends more to VBA as it's title suggests and Tech Guy any kind of Excel problem. I have 2000 power programming and find it pretty good.

[geekgirlau]

Hi Dakkon,

Welcome to the Board!

I've taken the liberty of editing the title of your post - you'll get a much better response if the title is specific to your question, rather than a generic "help" title.

[malik641]

Hey Dakkon, and Welcome


I had very little programming background (all I knew was like "For next loop" concepts and some logic concepts) before I found this site and started reading "Excel 2000 Power Programming with VBA". I'm not done with the book (I've been jumping all over the place in that thing), but it covers SOOO much it's unbelievable. I paid $20 for the book, and it's a wealth of knowledge for such a cheap price.

Excellent choice in my opinion

[Aussiebear]

$20... Yikes I had to pay $94 for my copy of Excel 2003 power programming with VBA, and I had to go to Sydney to find the book

[malik641]

$20... Yikes I had to pay $94 for my copy of Excel 2003 power programming with VBA, and I had to go to Sydney to find the book

Whoa

Yeah, I'd rather use older editions if it doesn't cost as much.

Sydney? Why didn't you go to Amazon.com or some other website?

[Ken Puls]

Hmmm... I think I paid about $30 for my copy of 2002 Power Programming through Chapters.ca.

It might be a tough slog if you know zero VBA to start. Personally I'd been meddling with recorded macros and trying to learn VBA myself through forums before I picked up my copy, so had a bit of prior knowledge to work with. Having said that, I love the book, and 2 years later still refer back to it. For the first 6 months, it pretty much didn't leave my side.

As far as the Mac/PC differences, you'll find some. Not all objects/properties/methods are supported in the Mac, as far as I know, paths to files/folders are constructed differently, and the windows API is totally out of the question. Regardless, I think you'll still pick up a ton from that book, as the majority of the code is, to my knowledge, perfectly compatible.

If you do run into issues that just don't work, post here. We have a Mac forum, and a couple of mac users, so you'll be able to get the answers you need.

Cheers,

[Ken Puls]

EDIT:

I forgot to mention... a big shout out to J-Walk, who includes a full version of the book in PDF on the CD that is sold with it. That CD has a permanent home in the drive of my work PC so that I don't have to lug the paper version back and forth between the office and home.

[mdmackillop]

EDIT:

That CD has a permanent home in the drive of my work PC so that I don't have to lug the paper version back and forth between the office and home.

Dear Mr Puls,
I recommend you buy two copies of the book. I'm sure that JW will concur.
Regards
MD

[Ken Puls]

Why is that, MD? I only use one copy at a time, as I cannot physically be in two places at once...

[Cyberdude]

Dakkon, for what it's worth I bought E2000PPwVBA a number of years ago, and in 2004 I bought E2003PPwVBA (both at Amazon). I can't say there's a lot of difference between the two, especially if you're just starting. They are both excellent reference texts. Hardly a day goes by that I don't open E2003PPwVBA to peek at something.

The one thing that I regret is that I didn't take a full blown course in VBA. I still don't have a good intuitive feel for a lot of topics related to object processing.

Something I've done that's been a big help is to create my own private Knowledge Base in an Excel workbook. Every time I find out how to do something, I take a few minutes to jot down an example in my KB. I wrote macros to search for topics and create new entries easily. That workbook now has 3220 rows in it.

[Aussiebear]

Whoa

Yeah, I'd rather use older editions if it doesn't cost as much.

Sydney? Why didn't you go to Amazon.com or some other website?

Well I took the opportunity to visit my sister and she mentioned this terrific bookshop in down town Sydney , so i went for a look and there were simply acres of books to look at. I went weak at the knees.... There was a wall full of programing books. I felt I'd died and had gone to heaven.

Do you know the feeling when you first pick up a book and it makes sence from the first word?

[malik641]

Do you know the feeling when you first pick up a book and it makes sence from the first word?

Yes, and that is why I have a TON of books that I haven't even touched yet (eg: Dreamworks missing manual, HTML, Inside Solidworks 2003, Inside Pro-E, Parallel Worlds [about a lot of theories on the universe], Time Travel in Einstein's mind [or something like that], etc etc)...but slowly and surely I will get to these.

But my trick is I'll go to the book stores and check out all the books I like....then write them down, and then go to amazon.com and look for them there