The Developer's Reference Guide to Microsoft Small Basic

Looking for a nice language for "quickie programs" or learning to program? Microsoft's Small Basic is a free download, and this is just the book to tell you how to do more than write a "hello" program. It goes well beyond the basics and includes writing to and reading from files - very handy for advanced programs. The book's writing level is easy-to-read, and the examples are well thought out. A great addition for anyone using Small Basic.

This is the best reference on Small Basic I've found so far. It's well structured and easy to navigate. Unambiguous and no more skipping from chapter to chapter. Well worth the money. I've just finished a SB course and I wish I had this reference book when I started because it would have saved me a lot of time and effort.

IMHO: I can't print out anything for reference study and personal us.APPARENTLY PAPER IS NOT VIABLE ANYMORE, TREE HUGGERS.Ya all know paper is recyclable..... I used to ask permission from authors to use teaching.Im 62 years old and Im not paying $40.00 for a book. Damn computers and can't do whatever....

Apparently all of these books are used. Apparently none of them include a companion CD. The front-of-the-book INDEX and Table of Contents is plenty useful if you already have experience with software manuals but may not be at all helpful if you don't already know what you are looking for. I am writing a small mega-program with small basic and I have been commenting where I found the most help with the structure of each section. This one book has the edge on CONTROLS, though the other book talks about them more. Learn to Program with Small Basic talks about CONTROLS one button, one textbox at a time. The Developer's Guide in it's straight-forward style gets quickly to suggesting how one might string a page of them all together into your GUI. Just Barely. It goes faster if you've been a user since VB4. For the rest of the strange adaptations IMHO "Learn To Program" keys one in much more quickly to the great Code Efficiency in modern day Small Basic. Things that take all day in VB6 fall into place in three or four lines of code in Small Basic. Unless we're talking controls .... And who knew you could make multi-dimensional arrays complicated ? "Learn to Program with Small Basic" gets you the much bigger bang for the buck than does The Developer's Guide, which does not unpack the new tricks and revised lingo as well as the beginner's book. Don't overlook MicroSoft's online tutorials ... I have not delved into them as I am one of those old white-haired characters who needs a pile of books opened to various pages to spill my coffee on ... but I have been to the website and hovered over the table of contents. If you are new to programming, start there for free.

This book was very good and it kept me up at night using Microsoft's version of the BASIC language. To this date, they still have community rooms online and constant challenges to push the programmer to build programs. In case you're wondering,Math is necessary (yes I said it)

There are a few typos but it was easy to figure out where they were and what they were.

As a computer-programmer-turned-teacher, I wanted to teach my middle school students how to program computers using a simple programming language. I considered several programming languages, eventually settling on Microsoft Small Basic because* Basic is the programming language originally designed for beginners* Basic is the programming language I first learned and used way back in the 1970's* Small Basic is designed to put the "fun" back into programming* Small Basic is freeAfter downloading Small Basic from the Microsoft website, I was impressed with its simple integrated development environment (IDE for short). I knew that my students would have no trouble using this simple interface to learn programming. I downloaded and studied a few game programs using the Small Basic Import feature, and I was impressed with the quality and simplicity of the applications. Being a former programmer, I then went looking for documentation describing the Small Basic commands and functions. I couldn't find any! I discovered that Microsoft had developed a rather nice beginning programming language, but they forgot to develop the documentation. Then I discovered The Developer's Reference Guide To Microsoft Small Basic. That was what I was searching for.Along with a companion volume (Beginning Microsoft Small Basic), The Developer's Reference Guide To Microsoft Small Basic provides the necessary documentation for a teacher to develop a curriculum for teaching Small Basic to beginners, and it provides the detailed description of the language's instructions and features that Microsoft forgot to write. It is a huge paperback book--479 8 ½ by 11 inch pages. It has many illustrations and sample programs. The first two chapters are very important because they provide an overview and description of all parts of the Small Basic programming environment, including variables, data types, arrays, arithmetic operators, math functions, and many more of the "basic" Basic features. This information is critical and is not easily found in other sources. This information is presented in a form that non-technical teachers will be able to understand and use. The "meat" of the book consists of twelve chapters that completely define the objects, properties, methods, and events that comprise the language. Small Basic is a programming language based on the popular "object-oriented" design, and includes* Objects - "things" that the language uses, such as text window or graphics window* Properties - characteristics of objects, such as color or size* Methods - things that you can do to objects, such as clear or hide the text window* Events - things that the user of the program can do, such as click the mouse or select a checkboxMicrosoft does provide some general documentation on these object-oriented features of Small Basic, but this book provides practical examples of using these features, and that is critical to developing Small Basic programs. I particularly appreciated the chapter that describes the File object, which deals with how to use Small Basic to read and write simple text files, which is something that many programs have to do but is not properly described in the Microsoft documentation.The last part of the book includes chapters on several important topics, such as debugging a program, creating various types of statistical charts and graphs, and animation, which is critical to designing the interactive games that kids love.The book contains almost 500 pages of information that is necessary for developing Small Basic programs. It can be overwhelming for a teacher who does not have a programming background (probably 99% of teachers). But the nice thing about Small Basic is that it can be used by students to develop both simple text window-based programs as well as more complex graphics window-based programs. It makes sense to consider two courses for learning and using Small Basic: introduction and advanced. The companion volume (Beginning Microsoft Small Basic) is a good resource for a beginning course, and this book is an excellent resource for an advanced course.I believe that this book is a necessary resource to anyone who wishes to write Small Basic programs.

This is a very poor reference guide. There is NO INDEX. Many pages with just one line of text. Very difficult to find solutions to problems. No list of program objects with methods, etc. It was a waste of money.