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Re: Request for computer help.
From: UNK
Date: 2005 Sep 8, 16:48 -0400
From: UNK
Date: 2005 Sep 8, 16:48 -0400
On Tuesday, September 06, 2005 1:53 PM, George asked:
> I've recently migrated from an old Mac to a laptop running Windows XP. My
> new machine appears to offer no built-in programming (unless there's
> something hidden away that I haven't discovered yet).
I believe that Windows XP comes with Windows Scripting Host, which
will interpret VBScript and Jscript -- stripped-down versions of
Visual Basic and Java, respectively. Since you already know various
Basic dialects, that's probably the best place to start. You can run
VBScript programs from the command line using the CSCRIPT command, or
in the Windows GUI environment using WSCRIPT.
Moreover, if you get the hang of VBScript, the more powerful VBA
dialect lives inside various Microsoft applications like Excel. The
combination of a spreadsheet and a procedural language is very useful.
Two primers in VBScript that I have found useful are:
William R. Stanek
Windows 2000 Scripting Bible
IDG Books
Susanne Clark, et. al.
VBScript Programmer's Reference
Wrox Press, Ltd.
Both include reams of material you can ignore, but have decent
introductions to the language elements, to let you get from where
you are to where you want to be.
-- Peter
