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Summary: Taking VB apart
Review: This is by far one of my favorites. It takes different areas of VB and expands on them. It makes a great reference book. Need help? Look in Chapter -----! Keep it up John!
Rating: 
Summary: STRICTLY FOR BEGINNERS ONLY
Review: This is not for intermediate or advanced developers. Even if you're only a VB beginner but have coded in VC++ or some other language, you may find this very tedious as I did.Here's an excerpt from page 104: ------------------------------------------------- Select Case Err.Number "...we're telling the Select Case statement to work with the Number property of the Err object. That's where our program goes to look to find out the number of the error that we need to handle." ------------------------------------------------- The dialog between instructor and students is just too tedious for me. I could have bought an intermediate VB book which has one or two chapters on Objects. Based on reading the first 100 pages, I'd say the entire material could have been covered in 1/4 the space.
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Summary: ANOTHER 5 STAR HIT for JOHN SMILEY !
Review: This is the 4th John Smiley book in my Visual Basic library. Just like the previous 3, this book is a big time winner. Professor Smiley is back in class, energized by the challenge of "de-mystifying objects". In his usual step by step manner, Professor Smiley guides his students through the process of modifying the "China Project" developed in his first book. (The completed "China Project" from his 1st book is on the CD that comes with this book.) We are shown how using "objects" makes our code more readable, and how it streamlines the process of modifying a project. Every new topic is thoroughly explained and demonstrated in a practice project prior to making any changes in the China Project. Taking the time to practice first, is a powerful confidence builder for modifying the China Project directly. Many programming book authors are technical wizards who take their accumulated knowledge for granted. These technical wizards are completely out of touch with the experience of being a beginner programmer, and their disdain for beginning level programmers comes across as arrogance in their writing style. John Smiley is that rare technical wizard who has avoided the "arrogance trap" that many authors proudly espouse. John Smiley has a tremendous rapport with beginning level programmers. Most obvious to this reader, he not only has the patience for teaching beginners, he also truly enjoys teaching his craft. This book is a must read for a programmer at ANY level who wants to broaden their understanding of "objects".
Rating: 
Summary: Interesting and useful
Review: This is the first VB book I bought with Prof. Smiley as an author, I had previously purchased 5 other VB6 books. Prof. Smiley definitely has a different teaching approach than most VB books, emphasizing a simulation of the reader's audit of a standard college class in VB programming. This initially put me off a little, having been weened on other self-teaching motifs. However after the 3rd Chapter I actually recognized myself as learning the topic and retaining the concepts. I plan on buying some of his other VB6 books, if only to see if I can mine knowledge there that I have been unable to in other VB books. I do recommend this book, as it broaches fairly new and deep VB6 programming concepts/topics in a friendly and non-threatening manner.
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Summary: Another Outstanding Book
Review: This is the third book by John Smiley that I have read. As always, he makes learning fun and programming skills obtainable.
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Summary: Not a Computer Book, Its FICTION!
Review: This is the worst Computer book I have ever read in my life! I would avoid all the authors books because all the 1 star reviews get taken down and are replaced by Lies! Also, I contacted the author, and all his lying friends are harassing me now! The book was awful, it belongs on the Fiction Shelf. And its all down hill from that point. His books get more and more weird and he was just adding Filler. I was reading threw the Objects book, and I had to check the cover to make sure I wasn't reading The Old Man and the Sea! He has some obsession with the Sea. I paused a moment, and smiled, then struck out to sea positively... he continued, with surprising fluency. "I feel like a guy that's standing on the shore looking into a boat and deciding whether to step into it!" From Chapter 1 It's as if the hull of sleek, ocean-going racing yacht was getting overgrown with a load of barnacles, and snagged with seaweed - it'll still float, but it'll be slow, and it'll look real ugly up close." "What's more," Linda put in, "I guess that if you came to do any maintenance work on the yacht, you'd have to try and clear all the clutter out of the way before you could get to work on the structure." "That's about right." I replied, laughing. "There'd be barked knuckles, and slime under your fingernails - very messy!" On the second Saturday of the course, the weather was gloomy and overcast, with heavy gray skies threatening snow - it was so dark, in fact, that I had to drive all the way to the University with my headlights on. But inside the classroom, all the lights were shining brightly, and there was a warm atmosphere as the students shared the pleasure of being indoors on such a cold, miserable day. The third week of the Objects class fell on a bright, chill February morning: the kind of Saturday that's so quiet it feels like a Sunday. The ornamental ponds in the University grounds had frozen over, and on my way up from the car park I threw some crusts of bread to the cluster of forlorn ducks that were squatting under the bare trees by the gate. Beautiful, but what does it have to do with VB?
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Summary: Again a very good book by John Smiley
Review: To be honest I shall admit I've been concerned and panicked when Objects came to action. Now I find myself with way too much confidence, to the level I could build my own objects in my programs when I thought it was something that only the BIG guys could do. I want to take this opportunity to thank the writer because of this book, and say I'm now eager to read the next one in this serie. Also I will say the only thing I would have loved to see in it is more covering around ActiveX and how to create your very own ActiveX controls, but other than that I'm amazed how easy could be to use Microsoft Word or Excel's features from inside my programs. Thanks once more and take the opportunity to apologize cause my quite poor English. Thanks for your understanding
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Summary: Visual Basic Objects Mysteries Unveiled!
Review: Well, he has done it again. Took a confusing concept and make it seem like child's play. Objects can be scarry for beginners. But John has shown how it needn't be. He unveils practical uses and needs for Objects and how they can provide efficient, clean programming. This book shall remain a reference book forever in my library. He makes so much sense!
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Summary: A Clear Explanation of Visual Basic Objects
Review: While all Smiley's books are intended for beginners-this book on a fairly advanced topic-also provides more advanced programmers a rock solid understanding of objects. For example, his explanation of the Let/Get procedures used to provide object properties is more understandable than any other explanation I have ever read. I would recommend this book to any beginner who want to explore objects or to a more advance programmer who wants to solidify her understanding. Another benefit to reading John's books is that he maintains contact with his readers and is a continuous source of inspiration and information.
Rating:
Summary: Vital to understanding Objects!
Review: With high demand for books that condense material into fast and choppy presentations of key concepts, it's rare to find a book that explores and explains objects well. This book is one of those rare finds... I've never read a John Smiley book before and so this was my first purchase. At the beginning, you may wonder if buying this book was another mistake. The author writes the entire book as a long story complete with inner thoughts and full dialog of conversations with his wife, students and the owner of the retail store; where they continue product development. At first, the dialog seems tedius and contrived. However, if you're patient, you'll suddenly realize it works! It slows down the panic pace of trying to learn materal. As I relaxed and read the dialog of students rephrasing their questions and multiple explinations of key concepts, I realize that I did not really understood the concept as I thought I had. I think the dialog reads the way it does due to the effort of presenting the material effectively, no small order. If you have some experience with Visual Basic or VBA in the MS Office Suite, understand loops and the If statement, then this book is a good match. It pulls you from a procedural development process where code is accessed one line at a time, to creating objects. The book picks up the class project from a previous book and begins to reformat the code to an object oriented model. In addition, the CD Rom that comes with the book is actually useful. The CD is divided up into a subfolder for each chapter and you can easily import this to your hard drive. This saves you from having to create the original project from scratch. Another first for me, is finding a book with crystal clear methods of illustrating which lines of code are changed in the orignal project and fully explaining the changes. In other words, you'll have no problem picking up the previous project and applying the changes. Finally, I have found no glaring or annoying errors in the book which is not always the case for the books sitting on my shelf. It's extremely important to have zero errors in the syntax of VB Code when you're learning it. I was not able to find any syntax errors in this book; leading my code to a path of self destruction. Thank you for that! However, there is a control called lstBrands.ListIndex. With the "st" following the "l" in the book, I automatically typed in the number "1" thinking of lstBrands as a short way of writing firstBrands. After syntax errors of "object not defined" and so forth I finally copied copy and pasted the name from the code on the CD (in later chapter subfolder) when it worked, I realized that it was lowercase letter "l" not a number "1". If you like the class environment, or want to really understand Objects in VB- this book is for you! THANKS MR. SMILEY!
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