Rating: 
Summary: Great book considering the Date of Publishing
Review: After reading this book, I not only find it helpful, but I also took note of several things. First, the release date of the book was just three months after the first release of .NET. Assuming that it takes over six months to write and publish a book, the author had to have started writing the book using a Beta release of Visual Studio .NET and probably finished it using the Release Candidate if it was available to him. Anyone who knows Microsoft Beta releases, knows that the last thing to get any attention is the Help files. They are always spotty and many times non-existant, at least until the release version.
Secondly, the author tells you up front that he is a VB developer and will not use much C# code.
I did find that there are some sections with too much code, and sometimes not enough explanation. However, the code does work; I have tried it, and I will take working code over innocous verbage any day. I often times have purchased a book that costs more that this one, just to get help with one problem and this book helped me in several areas.
Obviously, any buyer has a right to their own opinion, but sometimes, self-proclaimed gurus ought to take into consideration the time at which a book was written, and the subject material, upon which research for the book was done, was available at the time the book was started and completed prior to release to the publisher. Apress is noted for having good books and they don't let bad ones out.
I hope Mr. Smith will write a second edition and cover some of the subjects that he and others have still not yet touched on.
Rating: 
Summary: Enhance your Visual Studio .Net experience
Review: Anyone who's worked with Visual Studio and VS .NET know there are some profound differences. Even with these enhancements, there is a lot that could be automated that would help just about any developer. Mr. Smith's book on Add-Ins helps developer accomplish just that. In order to create and implement useful add-ins, a developer would probably have to be familiar with programming and VS enough to know what is repetitive and what could benefit from automation. Hence, I wouldn't recommend this to someone who's new to programming and VS.However, for those out there that find themselves repeating the same tasks over and over or are looking for functionality that Microsoft didn't include, this book will be invaluable. Furthermore, Mr. Smith's obvious experience and familiarity with VS will no doubt give you some really great ideas about add-ins you may want to create. Excellent!
Rating:
Summary: Fantastic book for increasing efficiency!
Review: Great book for .NET developers looking for a way to get more from their time and efforts and augment their existing skills! You will save time with this book, while accomplishing more! Highly recommended
Rating: 
Summary: Just Plain Wrong
Review: I am flabbergasted that this book has been published in the state it is in. I can only assume no one reviewed it.
It is teeming with badly written and largely irrelevant code samples. For the most part, only four or five lines of a four or five *page* code sample are relevant to the topic at hand. And they are poorly - if at all - explained. The obvious is stated and the subject quickly changed.
The writing style is boring and uninformative. I have learnt close to nothing from this book and am outraged by the blatant mistakes with regards to .NET. Take, for example, page 313 (the grammatical mistake is as printed):
Microsoft has intimated that there will be other languages from Microsoft as well as other languages from . . . This is possible because of the set of unified classes provided by .NET Framework.
Um, no. It is actually possible thanks to the CLR. The author obviously has very little understanding of .NET. It's as if he wrote the book while trying to teach himself the fundamentals.
As a final note, do not expect C# code. The book title does not allude to the fact that most code is written (badly) in VB.
Rating: 
Summary: Limited depth, sloppy coding styles in examples.
Review: I found that it is largely full of code listings, and short on background information. The coding style seems very much stuck in the VB6 world, and the author needs to acquaint himself with the guidelines for coding in .NET (e.g., naming, etc.). At the time I bought this book, it was the only book around for VS.NET add-in development. I did get some value out of it, but now that I've done more development of add-ins and VSIP packages for Visual Studio .NET, I find this book very thin on information, and full of sloppy errors. It might be useful if you are writing VS.NET add ins (but take it with a grain of salt). If you want to develop add-ins, and learn about Visual Studio .NET in general, "Inside Microsoft Visual Studio .NET" is a far better choice.
Rating:
Summary: Weak code examples, VB
Review: I keep stressing the fact that I have not seen a single intelligently written Visual Basic (.NET) source code. This book is not an exception. The code segments are plain sloppy and don't cover enough features of Visual Studio .NET 2003
Better luck with C# in the next edition.
Rating:
Summary: Saving me hours of development time. Fantastic!
Review: In VB6 I used VBAssist and VBAdvantage utilities to improve my coding productivity and code security with automatic timed backups.
Les Smith takes you through the steps of creating and customising your own development add-ins. One autosave has paid for the cost of the book. This book is a must get for serious professional programmers.
If you are short of time and want a boost to your programming check out NETCommander on his web site. ...
Rating:
Summary: Most Well Writen Computer Book I've Ever Read
Review: Les takes you one step at a time through building an Add-In in Visual Studio .NET. Very easy to follow and understand a complex topic. Since reading this book, I've writen many of my own Add-Ins. I you want to learn and extend VS.NET this is the book to get. This is a note I sent the the author, Mr. Les Smith,
I just wanted to send you a note about your awesome book, "Writing Add-ins for Visual Studio .NET."
I bought your book over the web and have consumed it in a few days.
Without any doubt, this book qualifies as the most well written computer book I've ever purchased (I have maybe a hundred programming books.)
Rating:
Summary: Most Well Writen Computer Book I've Ever Read
Review: Les takes you one step at a time through building an Add-In in Visual Studio .NET. Very easy to follow and understand a complex topic. Since reading this book, I've writen many of my own Add-Ins. I you want to learn and extend VS.NET this is the book to get. This is a note I sent the the author, Mr. Les Smith,
I just wanted to send you a note about your awesome book, "Writing Add-ins for Visual Studio .NET."
I bought your book over the web and have consumed it in a few days.
Without any doubt, this book qualifies as the most well written computer book I've ever purchased (I have maybe a hundred programming books.)
Rating:
Summary: Excellent book covering hard to find information
Review: Mr. Smith provides an excellent service to his audience. Writing Add-Ins for the VS.NET environment had been nearly an impossible task prior to this book. Microsoft's online documentation, in my opinion, is sorely lacking. Without this book, I couldn't possibly have written the tools that regularly save me hours of coding tedium each week. Hat's off to Mr. Smith.
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