Customer Reviews

Programming Distributed Applications with COM+ and Microsoft Visual Basic (DV-MPS Programming)

5 star:		(26)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This is not a book to learn VB from. It is not intended as an introductory text for beginners. However, once you've become a fairly proficient VB programmer, there is no better book on the market to help you become a great VB programmer.

This book is to VB/COM+ what Kernighan and Ritchie's book "The C Programming Language" was to C. It is THE authoritative text on best programming practices for VB and COM+.

It is not an easy read, but it is packed with more valuable insight per page than any other VB book on the market. I should know because as a professional developer I own a lot of them. It is more "informationally dense" than any other 10 VB books that I own. Beginners and entry-level programmers will probably find it mundane, boring, and esoteric. However, advanced-level VB programmers will find it very informative and quite interesting - at times even captivating as you discover new ways of thinking about VB and the way you program. Just one hint... Don't read too much at one time or your brain will melt. Read a little, think about it, absorb it. Read a little more, think about it, absorb it. Over time, read it all, from cover to cover.

If you are just looking for a book with lots of code examples that you can cut and paste into your own real-world applications, then look elsewhere. There are many sophisticated programming concepts that Pattison tries to convey to the reader. To accomplish this, he bases his code examples on a very simplistic "Dog object". The idea is to teach difficult concepts in the simplest possible manner, and I think he pulls it off rather well. This is an "idea book" rather than a "code example book".

After providing an overview of COM+, Pattison delves into interface-based programming with topics such as user-defined interfaces and both types of inheritance - interface and implementation. Then he hits the fundamentals of COM, addressing Type Libraries and IDL, VB/COM mapping, object activation and the SCM, direct vTable binding through the IUnknown interface vs. late binding through automation's IDispatch interface, the use of dual interfaces, and marshalling. Just the chapters on interface-based programming and COM alone make this book worth purchasing, but Pattison has barely started.

He goes on to discuss the finer points of building and designing servers (DLLs), from design issues to error-raising, the versioning of components in COM, and the creation of user-defined interfaces. After going through the ins and outs of working with configured COM+ components and the sharing of resources within a COM+ application, he talks extensively about COM+ transactions and the many considerations of creating components for IIS and ASP. He finishes up with the topics of asynchonous messaging, COM+ security, and the design of scalable applications.

Like I said before, this book is informationally dense. As a professional Internet developer and architect that works for one of Atlanta's top technology consulting firms, it is the only VB book I own that I consider invaluable and to which I refer repeatedly. Fortunately it comes with a complete ebook version of the text that I keep installed on my laptop. I highly recommend this book to good VB/COM+ programmers that want to become great VB/COM+ programmers.

I found the book invaluable. Having read quite a bit on COM and written COM components in both C++ and VB, I can understand why some readers say that the book contains COM(+) material they've read elsewhere. However, the purpose of this book as I understand it isn't to say anything new about COM, it is to set COM+ in the context of VB and discuss design considerations in that light. Want to understand why VB can't object pool the way your C++ component can? Want to know how VB hides the interface-handling plumbing of COM? Want to understand why VB's method of adding a new method can retain binary compatibility but still break an existing client (OK, you might need some knowledge base help on that)? Want some design tips on creating VB components that will be used by scripting clients? Then this is the book for you. Bottom line, this book actually helped me solve actual problems on real projects involving VB COM+ development.

I found the book to be pretty mundane, slightly boring rehash of the first edition. But judging from the other reviewers, it is just right for most of today's programmers.

Ted Pattison is to VB and COM what Petzold was to an earlier generation of Windows programmers, and William Vaughn to VB and database. I was able to use many of the techniques he described in his first edition, notably interface based VB, on an NT 4 project. Now that we are on W2K, the environment has changed enough that I felt I wanted some guidance with COM+.

This book has bailed me out of several problems, just today. Maybe I'm in over my head in some places, but the reality is, we are often thrown into projects where we don't have 6 months to get up-to-speed on "how it's done right". I know I probably wouldn't have been able to get the information I need out of the Help files, but I sure have found it in this book.

Ted's book is one of the best written technical books I have (hundreds). He explains, anticipates, and doesn't assume. As another reviewer mentioned, every word counts. On the other hand, the book is written so that you can pick it up and read almost from any point, and get incredibly useful information.

Thanks, Ted.

I read the first version of Ted's Book, and would have rated it with 4 stars. This one is a very solid 5 stars. Ted does an excellent job of covering every topic of importance, with the precise amount of detail for the situation. As I have moved through the book, I have looked in the index for every "hot topic" related to COM+ (i.e. Object Pooling, Threading, Queded Components, Events, Activation, Contexts, etc..) They are all here, and covered in great detail.

It's hard to explain the feeling of complete coverage and satisfaction that you get when you read a well-thought out, well-written approach to any technical topic, but here's my bottom line: When I read Pattison, I feel like he has so much experience writing, teaching, and speaking on COM/COM+ that his book is a perfect distillation of all of the relevant topics, in the precise quantity of high-topic coverage and low-level detail. My impression is that all of his years of research and teaching have now been perfectly presented in one very digestible volume. I'm getting everything I need, in the right order and detail level, to feel very intelligent about the topic.

I actually spend most of my time in Delphi, but do a lot of VB and C++ work also. As an MCSD and big Microsoft proponent, I know that COM+ is going to open up a whole new world of opportunity for server-side development. The topics and knowledge herein, while presented primarily in VB6, are obviously applicable for anyone doing COM/COM+ with VB, Delphi, or C++. I can, without reservation recommend this book to anyone in that audience.

One final comment: The earlier negative review about the "dog object" is way off the mark. Pattison uses a fairly simple object in the first few chapters of the book to illustrate and teach fundamental COM principles. This approach is much appreciated, again Ted demonstrates a remarkable ability to impart large quantities of knowledge into short, understandable sentences.

This is a very good book on COM. Not only for VB programmers, but for programmers from other languages such as C++ as well. VB hides most detail of COM programming from the developers, but this book will help you understand how the VB team did it. This book is very heavy on concept and you wont find many examples in this book. VB programmers may find this book difficult to read, but C++ programmers who knows COM will find this book to be extremely easy to digest. Ted Pattison writes and explains as well as the famous programming book authors Charles Petzold, Jeffrey Richter, and Jeff Prosise.

What kind of programmer are you? One who blindly copies and pastes code from any old book without caring how or why it works? Or one who seeks to understand what is really happening by grasping the underlying principles? If you're of the second type, then this book is for you. It's not bloated with sample projects (I don't expect the author to write my code for me -- that's what I get paid for!) or unnecessary filler.

This book provides a complete "tour" of COM and COM+ from Interface based programming to the new features of configured COM+ applications. It is very thorough especially when covering COM fundamentals, transactional components, and Windows DNA in general. The author also explores message queuing using MSMQ in order to better explain the new features of Queued Components. I also enjoyed the coverage of the Shared Property Manager that I have seen little mention of in other publications.

It does have a fair amount of code in the latter chapters, if you manage to have the patience to read that far.

As professional windows and asp programmer, and an MCSD, I found this book to be one of the best reads in the technical field I have ever picked up. After I was done reading it cover-to-cover the first time, I read it all again.

This has been an excellent reference manual as well. I re-read chapters to pick up concepts I need a refresher on, or to bolster my ideas on how a project should be accomplished.

As a consultant, I am expected to be an expert in the field. This forces me to constantly read and train. Of the $1000+ of books I bought (and read) last year, this is the best.

For any reviewers that might shed a negative light on this book, I respectfully yet strongly disagree. Ted Paterson's easy going yet technically in-depth reading style is a pleasure to ingest. I have recommended this book to all my peers and junior programmers as required reading, and I recommend it to all Amazon readers.

I have never read a programming book that delivered so much knowledge in so few pages. Ted Pattison should be commended for his contributions to VB programmers. He does not waste your time with useless examples. Instead, he dives into the details of COM+ to give you a thorough understanding of what is really going on when you create components. I had to read this book twice just to extract all of the useful explanations Ted offers. This book is certainly not for the VB beginner, but an excellent read for those looking to get to the intermediate/advanced level.

This book is definitely time and money well spent. I assess a book by gauging returns for the time I spend on reading the book. I have read only the first 50 pages of the book, and I am certain it definitely more than paid for the money and time spent. My objective is to get a better understanding of COM for VB. I am not a serious VB programmer (I know some intermediate level VB, mostly a SQL DBA), but still find this to be of my level and exactly meeting my expectations. I have read David Chappell's Understanding ActiveX, it is good, but that is a very high level overview, and mostly untenable for VB programmers. This is much more solid. I like the way Ted explains the costs and benefits on 2 tier and 3 tier development and evolution of COM. This is my first review for any book I bought, and hope this helps!