Dan Appleman's Developing COM/ActiveX Components With Visual Basic 6

The author begins with a tour of ActiveX and COM, along with some common myths about the technology. His introduction to COM technology is good, but Appleman also explains the pros and cons of COM objects used as in-process dynamic-link libraries (DLLs), standalone EXEs, and remote processes.

When it comes to Visual Basic, the author gives plenty of expert knowledge on class and project options. He covers how to design objects in Visual Basic up close and includes some hard-to-find material on collections and multithreading programming techniques. Appleman also provides an interesting example, a live stock-quote server.

A good deal of the book concentrates on writing ActiveX controls in Visual Basic. Although some developers use the Active Template Library (ATL) and Visual C++ for high performance, it's clear that Visual Basic can do a fine job of creating reusable controls. The author presents a soup-to-nuts tour of ActiveX control development, with due consideration of such topics as properties, events, property pages, and even security and signing. Final sections on ActiveX Documents and the new Visual Basic 6 WebClasses (for ASP development) show off Internet development. In all, this book offers much useful material on expert-mode topics geared to the more seasoned Visual Basic developer. --Richard Dragan

Product Description
Developing COM Components with Visual Basic 6 is a focused tutorial for learning component development. It teaches the reader the programming concepts and the technical steps needed to create ActiveX components. Dan Appleman is the author that Visual Basic programmer's recommend to their friends and colleagues. He consistently delivers on his promise to break through the confusion and hype surrounding Visual Basic and ActiveX. Appleman goes beyond the basics to show readers common pitfalls and practical solutions for key problems.

If you want to just get code to type in your application buy a different book. If you want to be able to apply this technology to your applications, buy this book today.


Excellent Book   May 24, 2000
Todd A. Blanchard
27 out of 30 found this review helpful

Dan's book is definitely an authoritative work on the subject of COM/ActiveX development using Visual Basic. Even though the book is geared toward professional VB programmers, the material presented provides a well-rounded view of COM/ActiveX for most developers, providing them with the knowledge required to build professional, quality components.

While this book could be read by VB programmers at any level, the book does move a bit faster than most, suggesting that the reader should be familiar with some of the concepts beforehand in order to fully appreciate what Dan is writing about. This is not a limitation in any way. It was refreshing to read a book that got to the core issues quickly.

I appreciate the fact that Dan did not put much code into the printed material. He included only what was necessary to make his point. This left more room for detailed coverage of the relevant issues. Many times, books will be inundated with hard-to-follow code instead of relevant discussion of the information. This book was packed full of information.

I recommend Dan's book to others because I know it covers topics that are essential to VB programmers. COM/ActiveX issues will only become more important as Visual Basic continues to evolve into an Object-Oriented development tool.


A work of teaching art   December 29, 1999
9 out of 10 found this review helpful

Dan Appleman is my VB idol. He got a little full of himself in this book yet he kept his world-known teaching technique as excellent as ever. This book features TONS of material for pure reading, more than the kind of material that makes you sit next to your computer with the book on your lap and your hands on the keyboard. It explains every little detail in the technology called Com/ActiveX, even things you didn't really wanted or cared about knowing. Not all of what he wrote about is important, but most is very useful. A great book for the eager to learn. I, for one, loved it.


Wake Up and Read this Book!   May 11, 1999
4 out of 4 found this review helpful

I had to respond having read the off base previous review. This is one of the best technical books I have ever read and the source code is printed out entirely. Appleman goes beyond boring details and shows you with simple examples the inner workings of VB. Actually, I have been converted to respecting VB now that I understand how OBject Oriented it truly can be. He has very few personal judgements and if he does, he backs up his arguments with logical bench marks that can really open your eyes to performance tuning. I recommend it as an ESSENTIAL book to anyone who will be writing code in VB, regardless of the level.


A Visual Basic standard   March 31, 1999
4 out of 4 found this review helpful

Easily one of the best books in the field I have ever had the pleasure to read. I am currently recommending this book as the standard reading for all VB developers in my workplace. The style makes the book easy to read and the content and examples are first class. I cannot recommend too highly this excellent book