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Rating: 
Summary: Confusing book with many errors
Review: I am a GIS student who's also gone through most of a computer science degree and so I know Visual Basic and lots of other kinds of programming, but going through this book is one of the more tedious and confusing things I've done. Granted, MapObjects is a fairly large library and object set, but the author makes it worse in several ways. First, he deliberately gives you code in some places that doesn't work, only to correct it later on. This may be an admirable attempt to get you to learn it and think it through, but it just doesn't work - it's too large a set of objects and methods to keep track of, so trying to keep track of things which aren't even supposed to work makes it worse. Furthermore, in several places he does this, he changes some parts of the code, but forgets to change other parts that the original changes make neccessary to change, and one is left with a confusing mish-mash of partially edited code that doesn't look like the pictures in the book and doesn't always work. It is almost as if the author himself can't keep track of what's going on. Finally, his explanatory method of writing down large chunks of code with *short* descriptions afterwards doesn't really help. It would have been much better if he explained each component one-by-one, possibly even isolating them from other components where possible, and also made the code as simple as possible *without* having the deliberate errors. When you're learning something as complicated as this, the smaller the chunks, the better - and it's really nice to have code that works and runs right from the start so you can really see how it works (instead of not being able to see how it works due to deliberate errors).
Rating: 
Summary: Good source for MO beginners, could have been better
Review: I am currently learning ESRI MapObjects 2, and was recommended this book as it was quite tough to really understand the vast object model of MapObjects 2 through the samples alone. This book gives quite a good explanation of the MapObjects 2 object model.However, be warned of a few things - Some of the explanations are terse and you wish the author spent some more time to explain them. Also, there are some mistakes in the code printed in the book (I prefer typing down the code to learn rather than looking at it on the CDROM). For the intermediate level VB programmers, there are better ways to code some parts of a project than mentioned in the book. For example, in Chapter 5, where the author uses a cumbersome method to split a filename - something that can be done in 3 single lines. A final thing I disliked was the editing/format of the print. It would be a lot better to print the code in a better manner (to make it really apart from the rest of the text), and also the indenting and spacing between lines in the code. The code looks like one long sentence in some places, making it a little difficult to read. Otherwise this book is a good source, and something that you will want to refer to while coding MapObjects - but do not blindly follow the bad coding habits, try to use your knowledge to accomplish the task in a better way once you have understood the MapObjects model.
Rating:
Summary: Good source for MO beginners, could have been better
Review: I am currently learning ESRI MapObjects 2, and was recommended this book as it was quite tough to really understand the vast object model of MapObjects 2 through the samples alone. This book gives quite a good explanation of the MapObjects 2 object model. However, be warned of a few things - Some of the explanations are terse and you wish the author spent some more time to explain them. Also, there are some mistakes in the code printed in the book (I prefer typing down the code to learn rather than looking at it on the CDROM). For the intermediate level VB programmers, there are better ways to code some parts of a project than mentioned in the book. For example, in Chapter 5, where the author uses a cumbersome method to split a filename - something that can be done in 3 single lines. A final thing I disliked was the editing/format of the print. It would be a lot better to print the code in a better manner (to make it really apart from the rest of the text), and also the indenting and spacing between lines in the code. The code looks like one long sentence in some places, making it a little difficult to read. Otherwise this book is a good source, and something that you will want to refer to while coding MapObjects - but do not blindly follow the bad coding habits, try to use your knowledge to accomplish the task in a better way once you have understood the MapObjects model.
Rating:
Summary: Great book for learning the principles of MO
Review: I think this book is nicely written and explains thoroughly every aspect of the principles on working with MO. It should be said that there aren't many quality books concerning this subject (i found it hard to find one myself!).
Regarding the book itself, if you're a beginner working with MO, this is definitely your book. It has an introduction about working with basic VB; later, the book comprehends MO Class, Objects Properties and Methods.
In my opinion, this book should focus so much on web basics, it should work harder on advanced subjects.
Rating: 
Summary: Best resource for learning GIS Programming available
Review: I've been a GIS programming consultant for several years, mostly developing Visual Basic and MapObjects applications for government and commercial clients. I have recommended this book to several people as the best available to tackle this difficult subject, and I've got good feedback from them. Organized as a tutorial, it begins with a basic introduction to Visual Basic and then adds all essential tools for mastering GIS programming on desktop and web environments. GIS concepts such as map projections are explained along the way, and as clearly and expertly as I have ever seen them. It's well paced so you aren't overwhelmed. I've been through 90 percent of the code in this book thoroughly and it's rock solid -- I haven't found any errors. If you're just beginning with programming and GIS, this book is essential. There's also useful tricks about MapObjects that aren't available in the ESRI documentation, so it's great as a resource for experienced GIS programmers, too. If you're interested in GIS programming, get this book.
Rating:
Summary: Best resource for learning GIS Programming available
Review: I've been a GIS programming consultant for several years, mostly developing Visual Basic and MapObjects applications for government and commercial clients. I have recommended this book to several people as the best available to tackle this difficult subject, and I've got good feedback from them. Organized as a tutorial, it begins with a basic introduction to Visual Basic and then adds all essential tools for mastering GIS programming on desktop and web environments. GIS concepts such as map projections are explained along the way, and as clearly and expertly as I have ever seen them. It's well paced so you aren't overwhelmed. I've been through 90 percent of the code in this book thoroughly and it's rock solid -- I haven't found any errors. If you're just beginning with programming and GIS, this book is essential. There's also useful tricks about MapObjects that aren't available in the ESRI documentation, so it's great as a resource for experienced GIS programmers, too. If you're interested in GIS programming, get this book.
Rating: 
Summary: Nearly useless
Review: Poorly written, very confusing and error plagued. The author's intentions are great but he misses his goals entirely. Unfortunately, the book is a waste of money.
Rating:
Summary: Nearly useless
Review: Poorly written, very confusing and error plagued. The author's intentions are great but he misses his goals entirely. Unfortunately, the book is a waste of money.
Rating: 
Summary: Not as good as I expexted.
Review: The one major flaw this book has, which someone else touched on was that the author does not thoroughly explain what is happening in the code. Being a VB developer, I still found myself scratching my head in some areas. Also, it is hard to tell if the errors in the code are intentional or typos. If you copy the code out of this book to the letter, your program will not work properly. For example on page 116 one line of code reads, "If lstlayers.Count > 0 Then". This code SHOULD be "If lstlayers.Listcount > 0 Then".
Mistakes, or learning tools like this are very annoying, but seeing as my choices for a book on MapObjects is between this and another book, which has not faired too well in it's reviews, it will have to do. If you are new to Visual Basic, I suggest you learn the basics before delving into MapObjects...this book requires it, although it does attempt to show you very basic things.
Rating:
Summary: Not as good as I expexted.
Review: The one major flaw this book has, which someone else touched on was that the author does not thoroughly explain what is happening in the code. Being a VB developer, I still found myself scratching my head in some areas. Also, it is hard to tell if the errors in the code are intentional or typos. If you copy the code out of this book to the letter, your program will not work properly. For example on page 116 one line of code reads, "If lstlayers.Count > 0 Then". This code SHOULD be "If lstlayers.Listcount > 0 Then".
Mistakes, or learning tools like this are very annoying, but seeing as my choices for a book on MapObjects is between this and another book, which has not faired too well in it's reviews, it will have to do. If you are new to Visual Basic, I suggest you learn the basics before delving into MapObjects...this book requires it, although it does attempt to show you very basic things.
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