Rating: 
Summary: Excellent book
Review: All I can say, Scot Hillier's Com+ Programming With Visual Basic is a excellent book for learning COM and COM+ to professional level. If you have basic understanding of object i.e you know how to create an instance of an object with a few methods and properties then get this book. You'll be an expert in no time. The examples are excellent and very well explained. It's well worth 5 stars.
Rating:
Summary: A great COM+ book!
Review: As a self-taught software programmer who relies heavily on programming books for education and practice, I find this book invaluable for any Visual Basic developer who is looking to quickly understand and demystify COM+ applications and the processes involved in their development. The beauty of this book lies in the easy to understand explanation of the architecture and concepts, which provides solid and practical information about the various technologies and features without exhaustive theoretical assays.This book packs a tremendous amount of knowledge in 447 pages. The examples are practical, well documented and error-free. While this book will not teach you the basics of Object Oriented programming (and clearly states so), it will go a long way in making you understand the principles and technologies involved to develop robust N-Tier applications.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent book
Review: Chapters 5-7 alone are worth the price. They give details about how and why the 3 tiers of web applications work and communicate. For most applications, you may never refer to the rest of the book. The examples provided work, a rarity for many technical books. They are also efficient and portable. Build a data framework using these techniques and you can port it to any project. The framework clearly show the data layer controlled by the business layer which controls the commits and rollbacks. Best value for the money!
Rating:
Summary: THE definitive resource for your 3-tier architected system
Review: Chapters 5-7 alone are worth the price. They give details about how and why the 3 tiers of web applications work and communicate. For most applications, you may never refer to the rest of the book. The examples provided work, a rarity for many technical books. They are also efficient and portable. Build a data framework using these techniques and you can port it to any project. The framework clearly show the data layer controlled by the business layer which controls the commits and rollbacks. Best value for the money!
Rating:
Summary: Should be a must for any VB n-tier programmer
Review: Having recieved my MCSD I started working for an small dot-com startup. I would say that the greatest weakness of the MCSD program is that it does not cover enough about COM or COM+. This book is what you need to bridge the gap between knowing VB and knowing how to use VB in a distributed environment. Very Good Book.
Rating:
Summary: Best COM+ Book and Best Writing Style
Review: I can't wait to write a review even before finishing the first 100 page, because I can tell the author REALLY knows the stuff and knows how to write. It's amazing that within 450 pages (short chapters), the author can put in so much stuff and not let reader feel jammed - he even shows you how to use Visual Modeler in VB, not exactly what I expected from a COM+ book, but I enjoy it anyway. You can feel that the author really knows the stuff and has a lot of hands on experience, but he made reading through the book so easy, comforting, and enjoyable, even you are a beginner to COM+. You can learn both fundemental concepts and code details. Simply the best contents, best writing. That's it for now, I can't wait to read on!
Rating:
Summary: The best COM+ book ever
Review: I finished this book over a year ago, and never got around to writing a review. Probably won't help too many with most of the new development moving to .NET, but here goes. Overall, it was solid but I thought it could have done two things better. I thought the coverage on MSMQ could have been stronger and the project at the end did not get tied together as well as it should have. I like the approach of a lot of the Wrox books that really get into detail WHY they're doing something in their projects they use to tie their ideas together. I felt as thought the author really almost rushed this section of the book, and, in doing so, missed the opportunity to really drive home his points. Hopefully he reads these and will take a page out of the Wrox books in really getting down to explaining his reasoning and what is going on when he's tying his ideas together with a project in his next book. I thought he did an outstanding job up to that point though.
Rating: 
Summary: Good overall but ends on a down note
Review: I finished this book over a year ago, and never got around to writing a review. Probably won't help too many with most of the new development moving to .NET, but here goes. Overall, it was solid but I thought it could have done two things better. I thought the coverage on MSMQ could have been stronger and the project at the end did not get tied together as well as it should have. I like the approach of a lot of the Wrox books that really get into detail WHY they're doing something in their projects they use to tie their ideas together. I felt as thought the author really almost rushed this section of the book, and, in doing so, missed the opportunity to really drive home his points. Hopefully he reads these and will take a page out of the Wrox books in really getting down to explaining his reasoning and what is going on when he's tying his ideas together with a project in his next book. I thought he did an outstanding job up to that point though.
Rating:
Summary: Good Introduction to COM+
Review: I read this book cover-to-cover and learned a tremendous amount about programming middleware. This one takes you right into the code with numerous "quick checks" (small projects that illustrate a point) and larger exercises to show exactly how to port objects into the COM+ runtime environment. The book centers on a "DNA Payload" project, which contains the author's preferred method of data transport across and within tiers. Because he assumes that you know ADO, basic XML, stored procedures, and general n-tier architecture, Hillier gets into the good stuff fast which I liked.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent advanced COM+ book
Review: I started my COM+ learning experience with Peishu Li's "Visual Basic and COM+ Programming by Example" and then used this book to get a more advanced look at COM+. This was NOT money wasted. I highly recommend both books to users wanting the learn about COM+ and n-tier. This book is very well written. Developers with a background in MTS may want to skip the "by Example" book but you definitely want to read this book. Scot Hillier understands COM+ (and MTS for that matter) and his style of writing is pleasant to read.
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