Rating: 
Summary: Rockford Rocks!
Review: This guy is a talented teacher. He also seems to be a disciplined programmer, and he did a terrific job in "Business Objects". This book really rocks, though it is not meant for beginners.
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Summary: can I have my money back
Review: There are more flags in his programs than in the annual New York St Patrick's parade. This, I was always taught is a bad thing! One problem is that he insists on validating via the Change event. This creates far too many problems, the least of which is that to take account of moving around in existing text via the arrow keys or the mouse you should trap the KeyUp and MouseUp events. I think his grasp of OO methods is sketchy to say the least and I am forced to ask as he ever written programs in real life. I not only object to the waste of money, but also the amount of time I spent reading this tome. If you want to understand how to use objects in VB read anything by Deborah Kurata. Apart from any other reason, her book is a lot cheaper.
Rating: 
Summary: Some great concepts
Review: Must agree with the other reviewers - a worthwhile read and well worth buying. A definitive must read for beginners (or anybody with sloppy coding habits). The way he structures the different layers of his N-tier application also makes lots more sense than some of the other books I have read. Criticism against this book/ methods proposed in the book include ·Some of the code (parent/child relationships) are unfriendly to programmers, users of your UI and ASP pages ·The implementation of the business tier is somewhat functional in nature (Yip, I can do a Load and get the state back, but sometimes I actually want the object, not the state) I have build a code generator which implements a lot of the concepts from this book in a somewhat revised way, and I can quickly and easily develop a working CRUD application based on good concepts. The apps are scaleable and maintainable, getting new programmers up and running is quite easy, maintenance of existing code isn't that scary any more. The most valuable lesson I have learned from this book is: Have a development "methodology" (even if you borrow Lhotka's, he won't mind), Understand it fully, Review it before each project, and Stick to it! Well done Lhotka! JC@jcoberholzer.com
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Summary: Not applicable for future technologies
Review: Not applicable when you are using SQL Server 2000 or other databases that return XML results, which is considerably faster and provides cleaner code than the one provided here.
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Summary: Util como inicio
Review: Util e importante para alguien que quiere aproximarse a la oop y su idioma materno es vb. Despues de casi un año de leerlo y aplicar en modo practico muchos de sus conceptos lo encuentro util como un inicio. Es interesante despues leer el Applying UML and Patterns de Larman y despues otros textos mas avanzados y especificos para tener una vision global, seria y formal de la problematica tratada, esto es urgente. Una cosa importante al respecto: en sus detalles la metodologia sugerida por este libro se aparta de muchos estandares y refleja la vision personal del autor. Un pequeño ejemplo el uso de Lset como parte integral del proceso de serializacion que para mi es un disparate, tanto asi que la microsoft suprimira esta caracteristica en vb7! Leanlo en forma critica,confrontenlo con otras fuentes, tomenlo 50% en serio y veran que vale verdaderamente la pena
Rating:
Summary: Book for beginners
Review: Despite being called as 'enterprise design and implementation', this is a book for beginners. Example (video store) is for amateurs, and all database is done on Access. Even author admits, that design is in fact two-tier. And you cannot find 'stored procedure' even in index - very interesting understanding of 'business objects':) I saw a bunch of people on interviews - immediately after person starts talking about projects like mentioned one, you may definitely suspect the applicant just finished some short course or read this book. As a book for beginners, it might be nice, but should have a little bit different title :)
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Summary: I highly recommend this book!
Review: Very well written and structured. A great book for VB programmers who want to learn and/or get good at OOD. Intermediate level.
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Summary: Finally, Plain English Business Objects!
Review: Plain English Business object design, implementation and deployment WITHOUT THE MISCROSOFT MUMBLE-JUMBLE AND HIPE! Mumble-jumble MS explanations described and detailed with the authors insights explained in easily understandable terms. NOT a re-hash of "what the heck does this mean?" terms that MS loves to use to clould rather simple concepts. If Lhotka were a tech writer for MS, there'd be no need for MS Tech support! (hmmm..........). Highly recommeded!
Rating:
Summary: Well written - Be careful with concept overload
Review: I've read computer books for programmers for at least 12 years. Lhokta is probably the best organized computer book author I've ever read. Wrox always uses presentation style and format to produce excellent books, and Lhotka's writing style is perfect for introducing concepts in an organized way to begginners and people who don't want the first 6 or 7 chapters of a business-oriented VB book to be filled with elementary stuff. Therefore, they complement each other. However, Lhotka seems to be an OOP purist, and by structuring the material the way he does, you get a sense of concept overload, particularly on the first six chapters which deal with the basics of n-tiered architectures, (D)COM itself, and business object analysis. I sense he wants to discipline the reader into not following sloppy coding habits, about which VB is quite forgiving. The examples are excellent, and the respective chapters are compact: if you want to develop, say, an IIS application, all details for structuring it as well as developing an app interface are right there. Very rarely do you have to go back and forth. (That can't really be said about the first four introductory chapters, but he'll go over each concept mentioned in passing later on... so that you don't get lost in a quagmire...) This is a very good book for an intermediate VB programmer, as well as a good reference for advanced ones.
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Summary: Wanna be good?
Review: Great is not enough! Wrox did it again. If you want to do n-tier architecture, don't go further except if you want to get the Professional Visual Basic 6 Distributed Objects from the same author. You can get into a more *real-life* programming examples with this book and ALL exemples are very well explained. It gets you in every twist there is to do good OOP with Visual Basic 6. For beginner's to intermediate programmers, you might have some difficulties BUT it's written well enought where you can follow anyway. For experienced programmers, you will probably learn new twists. A must.
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