Rating: 

Matt Neuburg has a good grasp of what REALbasic can and can't do. In addition, Neuburg's way of introducing Object Oriented Programming concepts, along with the REALbasic implementation of them, is something that I found quite valuable.

The book is not in the "build an application step-by-step" style. However, the book goes beyond the basic how-to, and explains, in some depth, the hows and whys involved in the OOP process. By using REALbasic to illustrate these hows and whys, Neuburg shows how REALbasic implements these concepts and, in some cases, how it differs from industry standards. This approach I found far more useful, in the long run.

Having some rusty procedural programming experience, I had no problem learning Object-oriented programming in REALbasic with only this book and the official documentation.

With REALbasic's semi-annual version updates, it is becoming more of a moving target for book authors as new features and abilities are added. The 2nd ed of RBTDG is starting to show its age after only a year (covers Rb3.0). That said, even with the Dummies beginner book (Rb 3.0), the Clayton Crooks II book (Rb 4.02) and the upcoming Visual Quickstart Guide (Rb 3.5), the RBTDG's breadth, depth and relevance is such that I would still recommend this book, if you could buy only one.

With REALbasic now at version 4.51, I really hope that there will be an updated 3rd edition of this Definitive REALbasic classic.

If so, I'll gladly buy one of the first copies.