Customer Rating: 
Summary: Best book yet on VID6
Comment: Nothing earth shattering to say in this review. VID Unleashed is the best book I have read on VID6--hands down. Competent chapters on the scripting object model, the VID data environment, and the database and query designers. Several hundred pages of good reference material on the SOM, HTML, DHTML, ADO, etc. Good stuff.
My only complaint is that there is an obvious switch from one writer to another between chapters.
Customer Rating: 
Summary: Another Sams faux pas
Comment: Errors and errors and more errors. There are two things guaranteed if you buy a Sams or Que book. The examples will not work. The authors just type them in, willy-nilly, the publishers take the examples on faith.
They cut and paste a proforma Thank You to all the 'hard working' folks who worked on the book.
You go out, buy the book, start reading, type in one example, BAAM ! BOOM ! Crash, and another crash.
I took the book back to the chain store where I bought and told the buyer to it pull it off the shelf.
To my surprise, knowing how little book stores care, all the Sams books dealing with VI were pulled off the shelf.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Good Start, but lots of errors
Comment: This was a good book as an introduction to developing ASP with VI. I had come from a "code everything by hand" approach and VI unleashed has given me a great introduction to the visual developement capabilities of InterDev 6. However, the major drawbacks are Chapter 23 and 24. I learn best by doing and while the steps in creating the example online catalog helped me to learn how to use DTCs, etc in the end the examples did not work. Examples that don't work are very frustrating. I want to see the program I did in the examples work, not chase down bugs. Also adding to my frustration is that there are no online resources where fixes and updates to the text exist. All in all though, the book presented the material well and helped me get a good grasp of VI6.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Visual InterDev 6 Unleashed
Comment: Please avoid buying this book. None of the examples work. The buster didn't check the examples before editing the book. "YOU WILL WASTE YOUR MONEY"
Customer Rating:
Summary: Not for beginners, but excellent for an intermediate user
Comment: Considering the importance of Visual InterDev 6, and the marketability of VI6 certification, I am puzzled by the scarcity of good books on the subject. Thurrott, et al., have produced one of the better ones. It is a compendium of VI6 topics that cover all the necessary aspects of VI6 development. Rather than introducing the reader to the mechanics of the interface, the book is true to its stated assumption that readers already "have a basic understanding of the product." Perhaps the authors took this too much to heart in their chapter layout. For example, in the very beginning of the book are the topics "Creating Cross-Browser Web Applications", "Using Dynamic HTML" and "Programming the Scripting Object Model". Now, these are certainly important subjects, but if you are attempting to learn VI6 from scratch, these topics seem to come out of nowhere. If, on the other hand, you have been using VI6 for a short time, and have already read an introductory book, such as Microsoft's "Using Visual Interdev 6" or Sams' "Teach Yourself Visual Interdev 6 in 24 Hours", then Thorrott's book seems to start in just about the right place.WEAKNESSES: First of all, I must state that when I read a developer book such as this, I use the concepts discussed in the text to create my own sample code to test those concepts. I seldom copy the text examples onto my system, and seldom test the sample code on the accompanying CD. (Most CD's that are shipped with books contain very little that might interest me. I would prefer that the publisher keep the CD, and lower the book price. Besides, placing the examples on a publisher's web site, rather than on a CD, allows them to be corrected dynamically.) So, I can not comment on the issue of the examples working as is. My own examples, created using the text as a guide, worked fine. So, speaking of the book alone, its greatest weakness is in chapter to chapter flow. Each chapter seems to work well in covering its designated topic. I did not find this to be a significant distraction. Another area of weakness was in the amorphous arena of browser support for specific features. While I realize that this is a moving target, simply stating that Netscape and IE interpret stylesheets differently is inadequate.
STRENGTHS: I loved the simple example of creating a VB component for Web data access, then running it within Microsoft Transaction Server (MTS). Since all component discussion emphasized the importance of custom marshalling of parameters, rather than utilizing class properties in DCOM, the component examples were already suitable for MTS, which prefers stateless objects. VB old-timers, who are accustomed to programming object classes will appreciate this.
A great strength in the text is the frequent clarification of particular techniques that work and those that don't -- based entirely on the experience of the authors. And there are wise and bold assertions of which technologies to avoid. I was particularly pleased with the inclusion, in the appendixes (I guess they're not 'appendices' any more.) of over 300 pages of quick references (7 in all) covering HTML, JavaScript, VBScript, Active Server Objects, ActiveX Data Objects, T-SQL, and the Scripting Object Model. Although none is in great depth, they usually provide all the necessary info to jog the memory of someone who is already familiar with their subjects.
For experienced VB developers, this book provides the essential guidance needed for breaking old habits when making the transition to web application development. And since many intro books on Active Server Pages (ASP) tend to encourage the intermingling of VBScript and HTML, Thurrott, et al., provide the antidote, and the reasons why. There is a lot of wisdom here.
CONCLUSION: While this is not a particularly good choice for a complete beginner at VI6, it is an excellent book for an experienced VB developer who needs to sort out the plethora of options and approaches available in VI6, or for the novice who has already made it through one of the beginner books and needs to move on. For the most advanced VI6 gurus... you're in virgin territory.
