Professional Visual Basic 6 Web Programming (ISBN 186100222X)

Book Description:
This book looks at the special demands of web programming, as well as its flexibility, and will introduce you to DNA - Microsoft's web development structure. Programming the browser through a variety of techniques - DHTML, scripting and VB components is discussed. Then how you can use VB to incorporate and customize browsers in your traditional VB applications is covered using MTS and MSMQ. From here, combining ASP and VB to produce dynamic web pages and sophisticated business logic processing for your website is discussed . Once the data has been collected, retrieving data through SQL Server and ADO is covered. Finally data transfer across the web with XML and the new web programming mechanism, Web Classes are introduced.

Not well clearlly writen - too many authors:
I have 4 years VB programming experience, but after read 7 chapters of this book, I'm still feel confusing. Everything are talked a little bit, but nothing is discussed in detail. Each chapter is not well connected, this not like a book but like a huge magazine with a bunch of articles -- too many authers can mess up a good name book. They seems never talk to each other before and after writing this book. for examble, in beginning of chapter 9, it says: "By now you have learned how Active Server Page (ASP) use components." -- False! I never learned, at least in this book! In chapter 6 -- DHTML Application. The example application is only working in VB IDE even after making the package. It's either the author's problem or Microsoft's problem. As a "Professional VB Web programming book", it neither explains how to deploy a Web application well in general, nor teach you programming in detail. This book turns me to read other ASP book.

Total junk:
There seems to be a pattern with the books from Wrox. If there is more than one author on the cover, it usually stinks. This book is no exception. They try to cover too much, and end up leaving you mad because you actually spent money on something this bad. This book is nothing more than a door stop!

Very SQL serve-centric:
If you are just starting to use ASP and have access to a MS SQL server, then this is a good read. However, don't even consider it if you have any previous APS experience or don't have access to a SQL server. In fact, there is no mention of MS Access in the entire book! It is pratically usesless as a reference for ASP and just sits and gathers dust.

Book was very useful to me professionally. But not perfect.:
I rated this 5 stars because it has the most useful writeup on writing Server Components in VB for use with ASP - chapters 9-11. I wanted to do this and had trouble getting working samples and explanations. I feel that industrial strength ASP is very ugly and unweildy if you don't encapsulate the code into components. MSDN has lots of reference material about this but little, if any, useful "how to" stuff that i could find. This book showed me how to do exactly what i wanted to do. Other than that, it is a good introduction into a good number of web concepts, old and new. The first 3 chapters were a good overview of Microsoft web concepts and techniques. The writeup on web classes, if you like them, is good. I really liked the CGI case study including how to implement standard input/output via the win32 API. The relatively free use of various win32 API functions in VB help overcome a general fear of mixing VB and CC++ functionality. The book was a bit large but was well organized. In general it gave me a much higher opinion of Wrox books.

Not well clearlly writen - too many authors:
I have 4 years VB programming experience, but after read 7 chapters of this book, I'm still feel confusing. Everything are talked a little bit, but nothing is discussed in detail. Each chapter is not well connected, this not like a book but like a huge magazine with a bunch of articles -- too many authers can mess up a good name book. They seems never talk to each other before and after writing this book. for examble, in beginning of chapter 9, it says: "By now you have learned how Active Server Page (ASP) use components. In the next two chapters, we will focus on ... (something base on use components)" -- False! I never learned, at least in this book! In chapter 6 -- DHTML Application. The example application is only working in VB IDE even after making the package. It's either the author's problem or Microsoft's problem. As a "Professional VB Web programming book", it neither explains how to deploy a Web application well in general, nor teach you programming in detail. This book turns me to other ASP books.