Customer Reviews

Activex Programming With Visual C++ 5

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

 

 

well, it should be an excellent book but finally turns out to be a nightmare due to too many mistakes. Few files in the book can be used directly and mistakes could be found every page. Just a waste of time and energy.

This book tries to show how to 'do ActiveX' without explaining what ActiveX (or COM) is. It gives some 'recipes', but doesn't explain the gotchas. As far as recipes go, some areas that were important for my project were missing (variant and safearray manipulation, threading models) I think anyone whose serious about ActiveX programming (especially the distributed-computing part) should have some understanding of the inner-workings of COM. This book does not touch this issue at all. Another issue not touched is the structure of ATL and the OLE parts of MFC (which is hard to explain without explaining COM first). So I'd say this is book is good for someone who needs to get something out the door tomorrow, assuming that the book's 'recipes' cover all the project's needs (which is not very likely...)

Gotta give it to them, when time is money, having full examples for MFC and ATL implementations of the same COM Servers is very very useful. The BaseCtl versions are very specific to a framework very few people even heard about. Two out of three ain't bad. But reality is that there's a third approach that's only lightly touched upon, and that's straight API calls, straight, that is, with VC++5's help. VC++ is getting to be COM savvier all the time, and here is another flaw in this book: instead of talking about both sides of the C/S COM relationship, and mentioning the latest VC++5 wonders like the client side #import statement, the smart pointers and so on, they talk about "containers", like from the old OCX days. COM is a much cooler and wider world than just a way to create ready-made GUI components. Where this book feels dated is in its focus on the server side of the OCX type COM object. Wish they came out with an addendum in electronic form, 'cause at $50 with no CD, it's a little like those one-of-a-kind GM transmission wrenches, which are inescapable when ya need them, but later earn slightly resentful glances taking up space on the wall. But that's still a solid 8, maybe a 10 if ya got a transmission to work on today.

To say that the authors of ActiveX programming with Visual C++ 5.0 have a firm grasp on ActiveX programming would be an understatement. This book is very special because it has side by side examples of ActiveX Automation Servers, ActiveX Controls, and Com Object written in three different styles. The styles that are compared and demonstrated for you are MFC, ATL, and BaseCtl. In other words you can learn how to program ActiveX three different ways with this book. Because of it's scope the book makes for a handy reference when you know how to program in one style and want to learn the other two.

Besides the introduction there are three sections, ActiveX Automation Servers, ActiveX Controls and COM Object each section is done three times, once for every programming style. Plus, the section on ActiveX Controls has another chapter for advanced programming of each style. To their credit the authors cover every part of ActiveX programming. However, the examples lack depth, and length that would make this an excellent book.

This book is a must have for the intermediate ActiveX programmer, where one technique is already mastered and others need clarification.

You can find more book reviews by this reviewer, along with Frequenty Asked Questions about IIS, ISAPI, ASP, ADO, ODBC, ATL, and ActiveX. Included with the FAQ are book reviews, how to articles and related knowledge base links at: http://www.15seconds.com/faq