Programming Distributed Applications With Com & Microsoft Visual Basic 6.0 (Programming/Visual Basic)

Rating:
Summary: Excellent book
Review: I didn't have a very good undersdtanding about internal of COM. This book gave me lot of information regarding COM servers and threading and is a great book i suggest for any VB programmer who wants to know more about how COM works. The presentation of this book is excellent!. Thanks Ted, for your wonderful work.

Eventhough i tried to read "inside COM" i found it hard for me because i am not a C++ programmer. I don't suggest "inside com" for a VB programmer.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent book on COM technology, a must for all COM develop
Review: 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

Rating:
Summary: comprehensive and easy to understand
Review: I read this book after trying lots of other VB COM books. This is the one which you need if you want an in-depth but easy to read book on COM and DCOM. For a introductory VB COM book get Microsoft Mastering : Enterprise Development Using Microsoft Visual Basic 6.0 (ISBN:0735609012 ). Thats also a GREAT book. Stay away from VB COM by Thomas Lewis. It's a mess

Rating:
Summary: An Informative Explanation of COM for the VB Programmer
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: Wonderfully insightful! A winner!
Review: I've read many books on the Component Object Model and this book is by far one of the most useful learning tools. Pattison covers every topic quickly and without any fluff, but he still manages to encapsulate (excuse the pun) all the information one needs to build great COM components with VB6. Loved it, and would recommend it to anyone.

Rating:
Summary: What a disappointment!
Review: 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..).

Rating:
Summary: A Classic
Review: This is a direct, no-nonsense book on the inner-workings of COM. Ted Pattison diagrams a convincing argument for programming by way of interface based component designs and outlines several strategies for sending data over the wire in a distributed network environment. Pattison has written thorough low-level explanations on the mechanics of apartment threading and remote procedure calls and instructively examined how Microsoft Transaction Server works. I am convinced that understanding this (relatively small) book can't help but make you a better VB programmer.

Rating:
Summary: The greatest bok of the millenium about VB, COM and MTS
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: Something special!
Review: You know you've come across something special when you actually "feel" that you are learning and understanding as you read. This book is indeed something special: clearly and confidently written, complete for its purpose and no grammatical errors.

It is the completeness of the book that makes it such an amazing product: it teaches you what you need to know in no more words than is needed to teach it. As you read, you get the distinct sense that you are being guided along in your understanding of the subject matter by someone who is not only thoroughly knowledgeable of it, but also wise enough to impart of this knowledge in a disciplined manner. You won't hear that "but this is beyond the scope of this book". Everything that you need to program distributed applications/components using the COM/MTS platform is fully explained. You'll understand threading if you hadn't before, when and when not to use the New, CreateObject and CreateInstance operators (I didn't even realize that it made a difference), why MTS and COM are inseparable and how to configure your components in MTS. Did you know that you can manipulate all of those ASP objects (Session object, Response object, Request object etc.) right in VB instead of VBScript, thus speeding up your web applications?

I started programming in VB about 9 months ago and never fully understood how to get components going, though I innately sensed that it was a powerful concept. I had gotten my first thrill when I learned how to reuse code by embedding it in functions and procedures, then I was amazed when I learnt how to model business functions within classes and then instantiating them as objects as needed, but I was missing how to set up interfaces and how to implement different classes behind these interfaces as I needed them. OK, I won't tell (I won't do a good job anyway). I want you to get the "rush of knowledge and excitement" first hand.