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WSH Book

Microsoft Windows Script Host 2.0 Developers Guide by Gunter Born

In the course of maintaining this web site and others, I've had a few programming needs that I opted to satisfy with Windows Scripting Host (WSH). I developed the scripts using just the Microsoft language reference documentation, admittedly, a poor way to go. Eventually, I got this book only to be disappointed. This is a very poor book. Unlike most of the gripes on this site, a book review is mostly an opinion. My opinion is: don't buy or read this book.  

In fairness, I wrote this initially having read only the first three chapters. However, I think this is enough of a sample upon which to base an opinion. Some facts to back up the opinion: 

The first sign of trouble had to do with the explanation of the history and current state of WSH. There used to be a WSH 1. Now there is WSH 2. So far so good. However, how this relates to the various versions of WSH run time engines, such as 5.1, which was current when the book was written, and 5.6, which is current as of February 2002, beats the heck out of me. It was poorly explained.  

The book consistently uses many terms without defining them, a cardinal sin for an author. Without a solid foundation in Windows architecture a reader would be lost. For an introductory book, this is disgraceful. 

It also explains things with an attitude of "this is the way things are" without delving into why they are that way. It's like learning history by memorizing dates and facts of events without understanding the the reason for any of the historical events. My favorite example of this is .WSF files. In the beginning, WSH file types were .JS for JavaScript and .VBS for VBScript. Somewhere along the line a new file type, .WSF, was introduced. Why? The book doesn't say. It describes .WSF files in much the way of the proverbial blind man and the elephant, leaving out the concept of an elephant. 

There are numerous mentions in the book about an advanced version of it that is under development by the same author. It never came to be. The personal web site of the author seems to have been abandoned, not a good sign. The WSH information there has not been updated in over two years. 

In my opinion, the book does not explain things well. Time after time, I found the explanations of new topics brutally disappointing. One example that will make sense to VB programmers is Option Explicit. The book discusses the Option Explicit feature before discussing the Dim statement. It's like putting the cart before the horse.  
March 15, 2002.