Customer Reviews

ATL Internals

5 star:		(48)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

This is simply one book that you do not want to be without when designing and implementing a COM project. I purchased the book after I found myself in my first COM project and without any coworkers with any experience in this area. As a comment, I've also rummaged around the Internet and purchased many other books in the effort to come up to speed as quickly as I can. ATL Internals is the best source of data on ATL that I've found so far.

ATL Internals not only discusses ATL but also does an excellent job discussing COM's theory of operation and how a Win32 OS supports COM.

As a warning, however, ATL Internals isn't the only book that you need on a COM project because it is specialized on ATL (and on COM in general). While ATL is useful it is not the only thing that you will have to deal with on a COM project. You will probably need to work with IDL files and for that I can unequivocally recommend "Essential IDL" by Martin Gudgin.

ATL Internals accomplishes several things well; I will try to describe the most valuable aspects of this book. One of the best properties of this book is that it is thorough. It covers ATL in depth.

The following is a partial list of the material in ATL Internals:

1) ATL Internals covers using the wizards and explains how to proceed beyond the point where the wizards quit.
2) A though discussion of ATL facilities. For example: CComPtr (a COM smart pointer) and CComBSTR (a class wrapped around the error-prone BSTR datatype) classes are covered in detail. The text conversion macros are completely covered here. In other books and on the internet I saw code examples that used them but will little explanation.
3) Bug warnings: both your (potential) bugs and bugs within ATL. The authors point out the buggy parts of ATL and they invest the necessary effort to warn about about aspects of ATL that, if naively used, create bugs in your code. Numerous pages are dedicated to showing both how to correctly use certain hazardous parts of ATL as well as examples of buggy code. Depreciated techniques are also described for completeness.
4) Discussion and examples of various COM issues, including threading issues, connection points, the Service Control manager (SCM)and so on.
5) Detailed discussion of the numerous macros that Microsoft uses to conceal substantial code, (e.g. BEGIN_OBJECT_MAP, COM_INTERFACE_ENTRY_IMPL, etc.)
6) One of the appendixes shows a cross reference between ATL classes and header file names. This was a welcome convenience (yes I could have greped, but this is quicker)

ATL Internals not only has great content but it is written in a very readable style. The typeset is easy to read and the diagrams are well done.

"ATL INTERNALS" is a superb source of information about how ATL works. If you want to be a pro in ATL then go and buy it.

I read it TWICE. Never before anything like that ever happened to me!

Well done, lads! Thanks!

This book covers ATL Internals in a very professional and essential way.I would recommend to read this book only after dealing with simple COM objects , and getting familiar with this technology. I read it after i have finished to read "Inside COM (MS press )" and it is a good order. This book is very recommended for professional programmers.

I've seen some preliminary drafts, and I've got to say that this book is going to be the bees knees for learning the dirty details of the Active Template Library (ATL). Chris and Brent are (always) technically accurate and present the information in a well written, easy to understand manner. Put it this way, I'm going to buy it and I'm the ATL Development Lead!

I have them all (and they're well worth having -- at normal consulting rates, a book will pay for itself if it saves you half an hour's worth of effort!), but this one is _the_ best (and has saved me _several_ hours' worth of my time!) -- if, that is, you're already an expert on COM and C++, with some working knowledge of VC++ and ATL (this is NOT, repeat NOT, a _primer_!). Get good primers (Lippman, Grimes, ...) AND this book.

This book is great for advanced beginners, those who are already familiar with the very basics of using ATL, but would like to know more. It has both code examples (that work!) and explanation of theoretical basics. I was trying to figure out how connection points in ATL work. I browsed through many books written by ATL gurus, but their code did not work, and neither did mine when I followed their advice. Only "ATL Internals" helped me to create a working client/server application that used connection points.

I'm sorry you felt my review was inappropriate. I (and Christian) posted reviews based on the draft manuscript - which is a fairly common situation for many books. Please note that I didn't post anonymously and made no attempt to hide my identity. Perhaps I should have been more explicit about my relationship with Chris and Brent. I assumed it was common knowledge. I obviously was wrong. So, to clear things up for good: Chris Sells and I are having an illicit affair behind the backs of our wives. Brent rejected both of our advances, so I think I am in the clear there.

Sorry for any confusion, Don Box

I have 5+ ATL books on my shelf, including the MSPress one, but I always reach for this book first when I have ATL questions. Hopefully there will be a refresh soon to add CE/PocketPC and ATL Server topics.

This is one of the best book on advanced COM development in VC++. Unlike most of the books on ATL, this book focuses more on the usage of ATL as a tool rather than the COM itself. People who strive in developing high-end (i.e. complex, efficient, small sized, etc.) COM solutions in Visual Basic, Java must read this book since it provides the best way for COM programming in almost the best tool for COM development. As the logo foor VC by Microsoft say 'The tool without limits', I think this book has really exposed the new frontiers of ATL's unbounded limits.

In short, this is a 'must have' for any VC++ lover.

I had often looked into Atlbase.h, Atlcom.h et al. and quickly got lost into so many structures and templates floating around. I have read many books on ATL, and the Online doucumentation..but things did not click! After just reading chapters 3,4, and 5 of the book, it is now a joy to look under the hoods of ATL and "get it". It is, by far, one of the best well-written books I have read.