Customer Reviews

Programming Components with Microsoft Visual Basic 6.0 (Microsoft Programming Series)

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This is a well written and logical survey of COM from a VB perspective. With only 371 pages of text, it attempts to tackle a broad subject area. The level of complexity is comparable to what is expected in the VB Distributed exam (70-175), for which it is an excellent study adjunct.

I enjoyed reading it from end to end, and keep it as a reference for certain developer skills that I use infrequently. While I consider the book to be aimed at a "beginner" in COM, beginners in COM are at least intermediate level VB developers. The moniker on the cover, "for enterprise developers", is a little misleading, since serious enterprise VB developers will need more detail than is provided. However, in creating a survey aimed at broadening one's understanding of all of Microsoft's COM technologies, the Eddons are successful.

Weaknesses: The book is far too brief for so broad a subject matter. For example, a single chapter on MTS (the lifeblood of n-tier architecture performance) can only touch the highlights. Creation of ActiveX controls gets much deeper coverage. Another weakness is the (not unexpected) Microsoft optimism with respect to the performance and robustness of COM technologies. A healthy dose of caveats is lacking.

Conclusion: A good introduction to COM for intermediate level VB developers. A superb study adjunct for 70-175 candidates.

This book explains the underlying architecture and complexities of COM, and shows what advantages it offers to Visual Basic developers. This well organized book first explains how to build simple COM components and then complex ones like ActiveX Controls. Code sample and exercises reinforce the presented material. The chapter on Transaction Server explains the issues of scalability. This is the best book on DCOM for the VB programmer.

Sooner or later you have to take advantage of COM in your VB apps and until you do, you're missing out on VB's key to building proper component based solutions, which is what COM is about. This is a great walkthrough for the experienced VB developers who have heard so much about COM but never really grasped it. It is actually a pleasant read and easy to understand, rich in information and backgrounders as well as putting the various technologies into perspective. After struggling to understand COM, this was the only book that helped me finally understand it- that is, as much as you need to know for VB development. It does not go into great detail about the COM specification itself, but rather as deep as a VB programmer needs to go before using it to its best potential. Get it if you are experienced with Visual Basic and want to get the full story about ActiveX DLL's & EXE's, ActiveX Controls, ActiveX Documents (and everything else ActiveX), that Implements keyword, a good primer and resource to data access (DAO/ADO/RDO/ODBC/OLE DB) and Transaction Server, and a decent introduction to ASP. After reading it, it remains a valuable reference as well.

This book briefly covers all the relavant COM subjects, without much depth. However, I found the section on ActiveX controls very useful.

For example, the section on page 129 on setting base addresses is a rare discussion of base addresses for ActiveX controls and DLLs. Something like this subject is often passed over in other books to make room for more depth or programing examples. This book covers subjects like this in a way that is easy to understand and use.

This is a great book! It diggs deep into COM to present it clearly and intuitively. It is impressive that an author of the top award winning COM book was able to present COM features from VB with such clarity and emphaty with a reader who is not yet familiar with COM.

I read many VB-COM books but did not understood COM until I read this book. This is a real gem. This book explains the most complex concepts very clearly.

This book has really helped me jump into learning how to create server side components for Microsoft Transaction server and components for stand alone applications as well. From the history of VB and COM to finely tuned real world examples, this book covers it all. Although it could have done without the Internet primer (like what is HTML?) I think a majority of the book is chalk full of COM and VB goodies. Enjoy! I sure did...

I am new to COM and new to VB (last used VB 3.0) and the content of this book provided a solid foundation for me to move forward. I have a better handle on COM, VB, MTS, and IIS and examples that I can go back to when we start development. It was well written with only a few typos. The examples are step by step and instructive. They cover a lot of ground at a good level of depth in only 371 pages.

This is without a doubt one of the finest CS books I have ever read. The writing is clear and logical, and the book is extremely well organized. The authors patiently bring the reader along through a series of simple projects which clearly demonstrate the topic being discussed - and guess what? They all work! The chapters on ASPs and IIS are nice intros to those areas.

This is an introduction to COM programming. If you are new to COM, I sincerely recommend this book.

The best book about COM and VB. Basic COM concepts, ActiveX controls and documents introduced clearly and precisely. Even the advanced user is presented with coherent picture.