VBScript in a Nutshell

How This Book Should Be Used

VBScript in a Nutshell focuses on the needs of three different audiences: programmers and script developers who are new to VBScript, VBScript programmers, and VB/VBA programmers who are new to VBScript.

If You’re New to VBScript

This book is based upon the assumption that if you’re new to VBScript, you know one or more other programming languages. The first half of the book leads you through the important areas of VBScript programming, which, while very different from most other languages, are straightforward and easily mastered. We suggest therefore that you read these chapters in order while referring to the Language Reference when necessary.

If You’re a VBScript Programmer

As an experienced VBScript programmer, you will be able to dip into the book to get the lowdown on the language element that interests you. Appendix A, lists all the functions, statements and object models by category to help you find the relevant section in the Language Reference more easily.

If You’re a VB or VBA Developer New to VBScript

If you know VBA, you know VBScript, since the latter is a subset of the former. On the whole, you’ll find that VBScript is a much “cleaner” language than VBA—that many of the archaic elements of VBA (elements that survived as Basic and QBasic evolved into VBA and, as statement-based programming evolved into function-based programming and then object-based programming) have been removed from the language. But you’ll also find some incompatibilities, ...