Advanced Visual Basic 6: Hardcore Programming Techniques (DevelopMentor) Book

Written by a Microsoft insider and well-respected VB expert, Matthew Curland's Advanced Visual Basic 6 is a unique guide to extending the reach of VB into COM and object design. This compendium of tips and strategies for doing more in Visual Basic is perfect for intermediate to a advanced developers seeking to overcome bottlenecks in performance and functionality in their favourite programming tool. The underlying message is that Visual Basic lets you work more efficiently with Microsoft COM if you implement a few extra routines that look under its hood. A custom library of routines (called VBoost) comes with the book, on the accompanying CD-ROM. Each chapter shows how to use this code, beginning with new ways to use pointers and access COM internals to enhance performance with such features as arrays, strings, threads and classes. The most notable techniques use memory more efficiently (including code that creates large numbers of objects faster). More advanced readers will appreciate the in-depth guide to building COM objects programmatically within VB. (The book shows you how to create lightweight COM objects using custom routines). For the real guru, there's even a section on how to use inline assembly language within Visual Basic. Later sections turn to a host of techniques for multithreading, doing more with windows and how to manage and customise COM-type libraries for successful real-world deployment. Armed with these custom routines and an expert's-eye view of VB internals, you'll be able to get more out of Visual Basic with faster, more versatile programs. --Richard DraganRead More