Next the kit introduces user interface design (with plenty of hints for creating effective UIs) and how to use control arrays and menu basics. Lab exercises give you practice while creating a working hotel reservation system. Business systems need quality data, and the book covers a variety of strategies for data validation. After some material on debugging and error handling, the authors look at using VB classes to model business objects.
Coverage of COM and ActiveX basics is notably strong in this text, with chapters on ActiveX Documents; object linking and embedding (OLE) Automation (with Excel); and building custom, reusable ActiveX objects. A standout section here is the thorough introduction to the ActiveX Data Objects (ADO) for database access, which includes an introduction to SQL.
The book thoroughly introduces the three options for Internet development in VB (dynamic HTML [DHTML], ActiveX Documents, and WebClasses) and then closes with some material on creating help systems and deploying VB applications. Besides a worthy exam tutorial, this book can also serve as an introduction to the newer features in VB for enterprise and Internet development for those who have used VB in the past but want a quick, comprehensible, and practical tour of its newest capabilities. --Richard Dragan