I'm posting here to point out that the book has a tremendous amount of support materials that have never been advertised. Each of my books has a support page containing a current list of errata, downloadable files (completed exercises from the book), extra links to extra materials I have written and my email address in the event you have problems. I also run a series of online classes so that if you would like to learn with me in a more structured setting, you can do that also. You can access those materials via this link

http://www.johnsmiley.com/books.htm

I should also say that this book isn't for everyone---and you can read through some of the other reviews posted here to see why and why not.

I wrote this book for beginner level programmers, and the book is written in a unique style.

You (and I) can thank the now defunct Wrox Publishing house for the style of the book that some people absolutely love and others (primarily hotshot programmers with lots of experience) hate. The book is written as if you are participating in an actual classroom---many people, particularly those learning on their own or in an Independent study setting find comforting.

My thanks to the many people who have written to me to tell me how much they've enjoyed my books and how they have helped them achieve their goals of learning to program.

John Smiley

"Great book to start OOP in VB", John Smiley has written a great book for beginning to intermediate VB programmers wishing to learn how to use VB to create their own objects and object models. This book would not be a good book for someone looking for quick and dirty answers. If you are willing to invest a little time, you will be creating your own objects and object models that will make your programs more robust and maintainable. Overall I thought that his virtual classroom approach is a great idea for beginning programmers reading this book, as it had questions posed from the virtual students that most likely are asked in any programming course. I'm sure that more experienced programmers don't like this approach since it inflates the size of the book, but there are some invaluable bits of info that the beginner will get from this approach. I'm sure that will raise their level of confidence as well knowing that their questions as to why something does/doesn't work in a particualr situation is explained. I also had an issue with the way Smiley used an error handling routine and e-mailed him my solution (which I thought was better) and he e-mailed me back a few days later with a courteous note explaing his why he chose his method, but liked my solution and was glad that it worked. I really appreciated the fact that he took the time to read over my question and then replied...I'm sure not too many people care enough to follow up their works. One final note: I'd follow-up Smiley's book by also getting a copy of "The Visual Basic Object and Component Handbook" by Peter Vogel. These two books combined will make anyone VB object masters.

"Learn to Program Visual Basic Objects", This book should be the 3rd or 4th book in a series of books from John Smiley. Start with the "Learn to Program Visual Basic 6" and then follow it up with either "Learn to Program Visual Basic 6.0 Examples" or the "Learn to Program Visual Basic Databases and finally this book. After you have read all 4 books, you will have a solid foundation to building more sophisticated applications. These 4 books by John Smiley help me get a solid knowledge base.

"I couldn't finish Moby Dick, either...", Anyone who has tried it knows that that book is wordy- and so is this one. The author uses a fictional programming class to set the stage for what he is trying to teach- with fictional students, and lots of fictional dialogue, as well. This results in a very LONG read for little information. I just couldn't get through it, a shame, because the guy probably knows what he is talking about.

I prefer a text that you can get the information without trudging through lots of extra garbage. Smiley's style of writing is not for me. 2 stars is generous.

"Learn to program and enjoy the reading at the same time", Like other books of Learn to Program Visual Basic series, Learn to Program Visual Basic Objects is about teaching readers how to program with VB in a classroom set of environment. The university course is ten weeks long, and the class meets once a week on every Saturday morning. Instead of showing readers pure technical information, Professor John Smiley records the whole class conversation on paper. Readers who follow along the content will feel like sitting in the classroom watching the class. Here is a short description of each chapter:

Chapter One The Return of the China Shop Continuing from the original China Shop program, Joe Bullina, the owner of Bullina China Shop, requests some new modifications after he and his staff happily using the program to increase the store revenue. By considering frequent modifications and limited budget, Professor Smiley recommends Mr. Bullina to have the program object-oriented in his up-coming VB Objects course. The author explains the general concept of object-oriented programming to his wife Linda Simley, which is worth reading, and will prepare novice readers for the following chapters.

Chapter Two Visual Basic Objects in Action Starting with the controls the class is already familiar to, Professor Smiley explains the characteristics of control objects and the relationship with their class templates. Based on the new knowledge, the collection objects are introduced. The author uses variable-array and object-collection comparison to bring readers one-step toward to the object-oriented land.

Chapter Three Visual Basic System Objects As the chapter title indicates, three system objects are introduced: including the App object, the Clipboard object, and the Screen object. Other four system objects including the Forms collection, the Licenses collection, the Printer object, and Fonts collection are also shortly described.

Chapter Four Objects ¨C the Inside Story The class is introduced to the characteristics of objects again. By adding a custom property and a custom method into a Form, the class starts realizing the power of objects. In the second half of the class period, the Use-Case methodology is shown to the class. Professor Smiley starts a scenario to go through the object-oriented design process. These twelve pages of the design methodology help me tremendously on the system design.

Chapter Five Creating Your Own Objects This chapter is where the real coding starts; the class will create an object and create properties for it. For demonstration purpose, a mini project called Student Grades is brought in. Before applying the new skills into the China Shop project, the class sees how they work in the mini project, which helps students nicely.

Chapter Six Adding Methods and Events As chapter five, the Student Grades program is continued been developed before the China Shop program. Object Methods and Events are well covered in this chapter. What I like here is a complete project shows me how to add objects, not just partial code. And I am reading the most common solution by using objects, not overwhelmed by every detail.

Chapter Seven Collection Objects This is the last chapter on creating classes, and I think it is by far the most thorough coverage on collection classes I¡¯ve ever read. Here readers will learn how to create collection classes for particular objects. After reading this chapter, I was able to organize objects programmatically and conceptually. I think readers will appreciate the concept of object encapsulation more after reading this chapter.

Chapter Eight Excel and Word ¨C by Remote Control! The idea of the ActiveX components is introduced in this chapter. By referencing object libraries, Professor Smiley shows his class how to use the power of Microsoft Word and Excel in their projects. Instead of writing complex code for a report writer, programmers can use the functionalities of Word and Excel to achieve the same result. Not too much details on using Word and Excel objects programming; after all, they deserve a book of each own.

Chapter Nine Creating Your Own ActiveX Components Continuing from chapter eight, ActiveX DLL and ActiveX EXE are covered in this chapter. By compiling components, code reuse can be true. The differences between ActiveX DLL and Active EXE are also covered as well as when to use them. ActiveX Documents and ActiveX Controls are not included in this chapter, but the author mentions ActiveX Documents will be fully covered in the new VB Web book.

Chapter Ten Troubleshooting, Testing, and a Ticker-tape Parade This is a short chapter. Several minor details on ActiveX components are mentioned. After that, A celebration takes place in Joe Bullina¡¯s store to end this interesting technical novel.

In this book, Professor Smiley reinforces (or as other readers said: pummels or hammers) the fundamental concept of object-oriented programming with VB 6. In other words, if a person as like me can get it, no one can¡¯t. After reading Learn to Program Visual Basic Objects, readers should have a solid ground on VB objects, which will allow them to go into VB components in no time.

The absence of database makes me rate this well-written book a four-stars. After all, this is continuing episode of Learn to Program Visual Basic Database, or at least I think so. Before I bought this book, I could not wait to see how the author object-orients the database version of the China Shop program. I have to admit there was a big disappointment after I got the book.

However, with the knowledge I¡¯ve learned from this book, I think it is a good weekend project to object-orient my own database version of the China Shop program. Like Professor Smiley always says, ¡°nothing can replace practice.¡±

Overall, I love this book, and I do recommend my friends getting it. By the way, for people who are seeking quick answers, this is not the book for you. Because it is like slow cooked beef soup, it does deserve readers spend time for it, and the reward is worth ten times of the price. The purpose of this book is to take things slowly in order to let the concept sink in deeply. With the author¡¯s unique writing style, frankly, I do not only learn VB objects programming, but also daily conversation of English!

This books strong points are the following:

1. It is very easy to follow 2. It is CHEAP 3. The examples are concise and make for easy understanding 4. The author PUMMELS the concepts in your head until YOU GET IT (which by the way he does excellently) 5. There are virtually no errors in this book (most of them are spelling errors in the prose) and that is RARE in a computer book.

So for this reason it is quite good. Now what's bad

1. Filled with lots of scenic padding (you know what I mean if you've read it!) 2. Examples are very small 3. Could contain LOTS more (such as COM ) 4. This project is WAY to small. I only WISH in the years of my experience with VB projects that an application would be this small and simple... No way...

However the reasons it lacks through the above, is because this was not what the author was achieving for, and not the audience he was reaching out to.

The book says it is for the Begginer to Intermediate level. I would say this book is STRICTLY beginerish in fact it is even intro. Intermediate and advanced programmers (ecspecialy those who have worked in VB) will find this book too laid back, and over simplified (You'll be sitting there saying 'OK I get it now, show me something more involved [this is what I was saying]'). It's as if the other students in the class are holding you back because of their skill level.

I bought this book because I have worked with VB for some time but never forced myself to learn its classes. This has to do mostly for 2 reasons. One, I have been able to achieve everything I need without it. Two, Vb is NOT a true object oriented language. I learned all about OOP in school programming with C++ and some Powerbuilder. Thus if I was going to do OOP I would not use VB. Also this book had very good reviews. I have noticed that most of the people who gave favourable reviews about the book with high praise, were virtualy in love with the author and worked from all his other books. This book though did what it needed to do for me, but it took way too much time to do it cause of all the padding. But it is good cause Smiley hammers the concepts until you get IT! Like one reviewer said, "If you don't get OOP [in a VB context] from this book there is no hope for you". No doubt!

A lot of the stuff for me, was just un-locking all that old stuff I had burried in the back of my skull from years ago at school, and recognizing the VB syntax for its classes.

But the stuff is GOOD and the book is VERY usefull. It's just a little too theory based to. What Smiley hints about the real world [regarding application development] is all good BUT when you hit the cement for awhile you really start seeing what it takes to make an app get in [politics etc..] and all the other B.S. that throws everything you learned in school OUT THE WINDOW!!

This book is perfect for someone who is either learning to program (meaning they have had NO formal training in it) and is using VB but hasn't learned classes yet.

This book is NOT for people who no nothing about programming. You will probably have a hard time with it. Also if you are VB experienced and know some OOP this book is missing MEAT!! and it is NOT for you either. You will get good stuff from it, but you will want more..

So that's my final thoughts to summarize this one. EXCELLENT if you are new to VB and want to learn it's OOP, LACKING if you are an advanced VB programmer (or advanced programmer in general). The rating reflects the book for what it is: 4 out of 5.

Also if your really interested in doing OOP, learn a true OO language like C++ or Java.

"Text like a B rate movie script", If you like the slow pace of a college class and script like a B rate movie, you may like this book. Professor Smiley does get the message across in an understandable fashion, but you must be prepared to read this book as a transcript from a class, not as an instruction manual, and thus put up with lots and lots of extra dialog. If you are not a beginner programmer, and I don't just mean VB programmer, then you should first try traditional books where you get vastly more information in the same number of pages. If you have difficulty learning outside of a classroom, then the Learn To Program books may be for you.

"Vital to understanding Objects!", With high demand for books that condense material into fast and choppy presentations of key concepts, it's rare to find a book that explores and explains objects well. This book is one of those rare finds...

I've never read a John Smiley book before and so this was my first purchase. At the beginning, you may wonder if buying this book was another mistake. The author writes the entire book as a long story complete with inner thoughts and full dialog of conversations with his wife, students and the owner of the retail store; where they continue product development. At first, the dialog seems tedius and contrived. However, if you're patient, you'll suddenly realize it works! It slows down the panic pace of trying to learn materal. As I relaxed and read the dialog of students rephrasing their questions and multiple explinations of key concepts, I realize that I did not really understood the concept as I thought I had. I think the dialog reads the way it does due to the effort of presenting the material effectively, no small order.

If you have some experience with Visual Basic or VBA in the MS Office Suite, understand loops and the If statement, then this book is a good match. It pulls you from a procedural development process where code is accessed one line at a time, to creating objects.

The book picks up the class project from a previous book and begins to reformat the code to an object oriented model. In addition, the CD Rom that comes with the book is actually useful. The CD is divided up into a subfolder for each chapter and you can easily import this to your hard drive. This saves you from having to create the original project from scratch. Another first for me, is finding a book with crystal clear methods of illustrating which lines of code are changed in the orignal project and fully explaining the changes. In other words, you'll have no problem picking up the previous project and applying the changes.

Finally, I have found no glaring or annoying errors in the book which is not always the case for the books sitting on my shelf. It's extremely important to have zero errors in the syntax of VB Code when you're learning it. I was not able to find any syntax errors in this book; leading my code to a path of self destruction. Thank you for that! However, there is a control called lstBrands.ListIndex. With the "st" following the "l" in the book, I automatically typed in the number "1" thinking of lstBrands as a short way of writing firstBrands. After syntax errors of "object not defined" and so forth I finally copied copy and pasted the name from the code on the CD (in later chapter subfolder) when it worked, I realized that it was lowercase letter "l" not a number "1".

If you like the class environment, or want to really understand Objects in VB- this book is for you!

THANKS MR. SMILEY!

"Bottom line it's worth your time", If you read this book and work through the exercises, it would be impossible not to understand the concepts of OOP. You may or may not like the style he uses (simulated classroom) but after working through the book you will have the background you need.

"A tough subject well-handled.", I'm still ramping up, but Professor Smiley again made a relatively recondite subject relatively easy. It seems almost like being in his class.