Visual Basic Object and Component Handbook

This book takes comprehensive look at Visual Basic Objects and Components including ActiveX EXEs, DLLs, Documents, and MTS/COM+. Every type of object or component is examined in this book and very well explained in a way to make you understand. Peter Vogel's writting style makes reading this book easy. This book was a major study guide for the Designing and Implementing Desktop Applications using Microsoft Visual Basic 6.0 (exam 70-176) and the Designing and Implementing Distributed Applications using Microsoft Visual Basic 6.0 (exam 70-175). I passed both exams. This was an excellent addendum to the Transcender courses and I use this book several times a week as a reference. There are a lot of Visual Basic 6.0 shops out there and I would highly recommend that this book be part of their reference library. The author is suppose to be writing a Visual Basic.Net Object and Component Handbook which is due out next year. If that book is as good as this book, I will highly recommend it too. I have about 30 Visual Basic books and this book is one of the best.

Wow. Forget about the fact that this isn't put out by a well-known computer-related publishing house like Wrox or O'Reilly. Forget about the fact that it isn't a "Learn in 21 Days" or "Bible" series. Forget about that, as I write this, only a few people have reviewed this book. This book is flat out awesome. Get it.I am a VB programmer with about 1 1/2 years of experience. I started off with a basic VB book, moved on to using VB with databases, and it was at this point I started realizing how important objects were. I needed to separate my client projects from much of the code behind the scenes and put that code in to Active DLL's or EXE's so many different client projects could access it over many different methods (desktop, distributed over our network, or through the Internet). I mean that's the power of VB! I bought "VB COM" by Wrox and while it taught me some things, it was really just an overview. I also bought "VB Beginning Objects" by Smiley but it was too basic and written more like a 700-page novel. They both had decent examples of objects at work, but neither of those books were good references. I guess the best way to describe my situation after reading these two books was that I knew what objects were, I knew the basics of programming them, and yet I still couldn't apply what I learned to the current stuff I was working on at my job. That's when I knew I needed more.Along comes this book and I now feel like I am a full fledged VB object programmer. There's none of this "Here's how you write a Select Case within an object"... the author cuts right to the chase starting at Chapter 1, page 1. Within the first five pages, I already had the author discuss some of the main issues I was concerned and thinking about-- ie, "It seems the more flexible you want to make your object methods, the more parameters you have to pass to them." I was impressed. Already something I was thinking about in my current project.There are 16 chapters covered, beginning chapters on designing, coding the objects, and COM interfaces, advanced chapters on COM Add-In's To ActiveX Objects, Deploying to ActiveX Documents. There's a great chance that if a certain topic involves objects, this book has at least a mention of that topic. This has been the best programming book I've bought in awhile and I will without a doubt explore more books by this publisher and author.

I first read this for myself, and have since recommended it to every programmer I know...from beginners to professionals... It not only leads a beginner ( and some old-timers) through the thought process for developing in a component model, but shows them how to consider certain situations that they will have to answer if they do any "live" programming. For the professional, it not only opens up new ideas on how to move to the next level in terms of tighter code, but also reminds us of key concepts - some of which we may have forgotten or just gotten lazy in using. A must have for the tech leader of any development team.

As a person who is constantly reading new material, books, eNewsletters, etc., I was most impressed with the content of this book. The book covers the design/implementation decisions that have to be made to make an object and/or component as effective as it can be. The auther discusses the impacts of various design decisions and does not really tell you what to do, but rather outlines in clear, consise language the implications of the decisions and allows you to make the design that works best for your situation. I have long been wondering if I was making the correct design decisions and looking for a book that outlines the alternatives that can be implemented to develop enterprise solutions that perform well and are maintainable! After the specifics of general object and component writing, there are specific chapters that target ActiveX Controls, adding Data Binding behavior of your objects, MTS components, and much, much more (read the table of contents). These chapters are written to be practical guides to the implementation of these specific technologies with clear, concise languange and examples! While the W2K and COM+ coverage is light, it outlines some of the items that warrant further investigation on your own.This book sure to be one of the most often used reference books in my library on VB. I recommend it highly to anyone asking about object/component design and development and I highly recommend it to you now.

The Visual Basic Object and Component Handbook is the best reference I have ever seen on building and using VB objects and components. Written in a clear, precise style, Peter Vogel takes the reader through the issues behind building "industrial strength" objects and components. Peter leads the reader along through how to use objects up to creating sophisticated object models. The code samples are invaluable, and the explanations are well written and easy to follow. Anyone who has been fortunate enough to hear Peter speak on VB knows his background and knowledge. This same enthusiasim and professionalism comes through quite clearly in this book.I also found the scope of the coverage to be quite broad. Part 3 of the book talks about developing ActiveX controls, ADO, and Microsoft Transaction Server (MTS) objects. On the down side, the coverage of Com+ is rather introductory, and not nearly as in-depth as one is lead to believe by the book cover.I highly recommend this book to professional software developers, and anyone with an interest in improving their skill with VB. This is the only reference on Objects and Components that you need!Dave Irvine, Systems Consultant, Irvine Data Systems.