VBA for Dummies | 
 enlarge | Author: John Paul Mueller
Publisher: For Dummies
Category: Book
List Price: $24.99
Buy Used: $0.38
You Save: $24.61 (98%)
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Rating:  32 reviews
Sales Rank: 607123
Media: Paperback
Edition: 4th
Pages: 408
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.3
Dimensions (in): 9.2 x 7.4 x 0.9
ISBN: 0764539892
Dewey Decimal Number: 005.268
UPC: 785555868700
EAN: 9780764539893
ASIN: 0764539892
Publication Date: September 22, 2003
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Standard used condition.
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Product Description
* Gives programmers, software developers, and advanced users of Microsoft Office applications all the key concepts necessary to write VBA programs for the new Office "X"
* Fully updated to cover all the changes in the newest release of Office
* VBA (Visual Basic for Applications) is the primary development tool for all applications in the Microsoft Office suite-Access, Excel, and Word-and according to Microsoft, more than 2.6 million programmers currently use VBA
* Since VBA is also licensed to other software developers and vendors, it is built into some non-Microsoft, third-party software; programs that include VBA can be tailored to fit specific business needs
* Shows programmers how to build applications with VBA and covers all the essentials, including: VBA visual programming tools, recording and modifying macros, basic VBA programming, running VBA programs, using the VBA Editor, debugging and error trapping, plus more advanced topics, such as built-in VBA commands and working with objects
* Author has written and/or cowritten more than fifty-eight technology books
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| Customer Reviews: Read 27 more reviews...
 Abysmal June 5, 2008
E. White (Houston, TX)
Amazon should start a zero-star rating. This book is just downright awful. Mr. Mueller, I want my money back.
One star is too many April 2, 2008
DB
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I couldn't agree with the other reviews more. I only wish I had read the reviews before subjecting myself to such a frustrating day of trying to understand this supposedly simple approach to VBA. It wasnt even well written for someone who had some VBA knowledge.
Full of Fail January 24, 2008
John Tchoe (Honolulu, HI United States)
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
"Fear leads to anger; anger leads to hate; hate leads to misery."
- Yoda
True, true. But misery can be traced back to sources other than fear. Frustration, for example.
I could say it's my failure to understand and take blame for my current state of misery, but for the fact that Mueller wrote a book "for dummies," and thus utterly failed in his mission.
I encountered the same kind of frustration, anger, hate, and misery when I was taking a course in C++ in Berkeley. Why is programming so hard to teach well? Is it because those who are good enough at programming to teach it get to be that good due to some sort of personality defect, a failure of empathy? Are they just incapable of understanding what it's like to approach this material without the intuitive grasp they seem to have?
In reading "VBA for Dummies," I feel at times as though I'm trying to make eye contact with someone who's staring at the ground muttering arcana to himself.
Well, maybe I'm overstating my case a bit, but I do get a sense that this guy is regurgitating what he already knows, satisfied that it makes sense to him.
You know what it really reminds me of? When my mom tried to teach me how to play piano as a kid. I was about four or five, and I was super-psyched. I wanted to play songs right away. My mom would not let me. She said we had to go through the lessons in the book, in the order presented. She had me do insufferably boring "Do Re, Do Re, Do Re" lines, because it taught the fundamentals or whatever. I'm sure the "Do Re, Do Re, Do Re" drills made sense to her, and fit in the context of how she understood music, but to me, it just killed all the joy and enthusiasm I had for learning to play the piano.
They say if you want to learn something well, approach the material as though you're going to teach it to someone else. My approach to this would have been to pick functional, demonstrative programs--songs in VBA if you will--that reward the student for his efforts with the "I made this," gee-whiz factor. With each successive lesson, the programs would include progressively complex topics and do more. The student's interest and enthusiasm will fill in the gaps in the dry stuff between lessons.
Mueller's demonstrations are programs that serve no real purpose. Most just spit out message boxes of objects' properties, and have no real context in the experience of a user of Office. "VBA for Dummies" is page after page of "Do Re, Do Re, Do Re."
Unbelievably poor January 22, 2008
Mohammad (Auckland)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
The book is an absolute mess! The explanations are vague and unfinished. Codes wont execute easily and lots of confusion will be there to run a simple program. Most of the time you need to change a setting, add a refrence or be fully aware of the naming. You end up down-loading the auther's code to know what is happening. Very difficult to follow if you dont have any background in programming. I have read 14 chapter and I have no confidence in writing even a simple program. More important chapters are poorer than the others. OOP and XML chapters are good examples. very disappointed specially because I have to go and buy another book and start over. I wonder if its true that this is the fifth edition of this book.
 Not a "for Dummies" book November 8, 2007
P. Zhou (MONTREAL, Quebec Canada)
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
After read the first eight chapters, I have to say goodbye to this book.
John wrote the first few chapters with us "dummies" in mind, but when he started to write chapter chapter 7 - Interacting with the User and chapter 8 - Object-Oriented Programming, he totally fogot who he was writing for. Even worse, you need to read chapter 8 first and than go back to chapter 7. John put you right into the jungle without explaining the concepts clearly. I am sure he knows a lot, but he failed to deliver.
Conclusion: it's not even a good textbook, certainly not a "for dummies" book.
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