Programming Distributed Applications with Com and Microsoft Visual Basic 6.0 [With *]

I thought this book was great. I've working with VB for 5 years and developing COM components in VB for 2 years. Did you ever wonder what really goes on when you build COM components in VB? Do you want a clear understanding about how COM really works? If not, this book is not for you.The author explains COM programming in a very clear way. I found the book very easy to read and I rarely feel that way about computer books. I don't think this book is for total VB novices that have never created a COM component in VB. This book does not have many examples either. If you are looking for a strictly "how to" book, this is not for you. But, if Visual Basic is you're bread and butter this book is a must read. A little familiarity with C++ would also be helpful to get the most out of this book.

I had no idea about COM and this book helped me a lot to get me started. You should be familiar with object-oriented programming no matter C++, JAVA or Visual Basic. It explains how COM works and describes its threading model. This book also contains few chapters on MTS environment showing how life could be easier with MTS instead of writing complex code to deal with issues such as connection management, thread pooling, and transaction monitoring.I don't know why Ted Pattison named this book "Programming Distributed Apps with COM and Microsoft VB 6", of course the author provided few sample code in VB but don't count on that to start developing COM components. Get the "Fitch & Mather" sample code from Microsoft site and study it, that would help be sure of that.Even if you are a COM programmer you will still find a lot of tips to optimize your code. I've read this book many times and each time I find few things that helps me. IT'S A MUST for all COM programmers.I would also recommend:"Creating Lightweight Components with ATL". With these two books and some coding you will master COM and ATL."Inside COM+ Base Services" should be your next book if you want to continue, it will take you to the next stage of evolution of the COM programming model.Enjoy it

If your approach to COM from the VB perpsective is "I know how to use it and I don't care how it works" then DONT buy this book. However, if you do care on what VB does behind the scenes and do want to understand the COM architecture read it and spread the word. This book is excellent (especially the chapters on interface design..).

Unlike many COM books out there, this one is absolutely CONCRETE TO THE CORE. Don't let the 300 pages of this book fool you in thinking that it is thin in materials. 300 pages of this book get straight to point of COM and its fundumemtals. This book is like taking other somewhat 600 pages COM books and run them through a mumble-jumble filter. What you then end with is 300 pages of pure juicy materials, all the essensials of COM. There were many chapters in the book where I found myself reading them over twice because they answer some of the questions on COM which I could not find from other books. This book is an excellent resource to learn how to use COM correctly. COM is not an easy thing to master, even for an experience programmer. The reason being is because COM is developed mostly on methodology. And in order to use COM correctly, you really need to understand how it works skin-deep, not just from the syntaxing. Ted Pattison does an excellent job in 'preaching' COM throughout his book, and I strongly recommend this book to those who are wanting to believe in COM.

What a great book! The author (a fellow of Don Box at Develop Mentor) explains COM and DCOM as seen from Visual Basic side in the best way I've ever seen. The technical details of the book are right to the point, without too much detail in useless code and not missing a point for what regards developing for COM/DCOM and MTS. This is a book that any VB serious developer needs on his bookshelf, and if you develop using MTS it's a mandatory reading. After having read and understood the DCOM parts (and if you will understand all you've done the 80% of the job of understanding MTS) there are two chapter about MTS that should be taken as an example from Microsoft about how MTS documentation should have been written (and they include also a very good explanation about how debugging under MTS using VB6), a chapter on MSMQ explaining the various way of persisting objects, including the new persisting properties of VB6 and a final chapter about security and planning with MTS.If you develop with MTS using a language different from VB I suggest you to read it in any case, because, if you omit the VB parts, it has a very good explanations about COM and MTS internals that it's useful for any language.Very, very, very recommended, I've read all what is available regarding MTS and this is the BEST book on the subject until now, with a big margin over the second place.