Beginning Atl Com Programming [Paperback]

Richard Grimes (Author), Alex Stockton (Author), George Reilly (Author), Julian Templeman (Author)

Book Description

Series: Beginning | Publication Date: January 1998

The book covers programming the latest version of the Active Template Library ( ATL ) which is currently in version 2.1. The book uses Visual C++ 5 as the programming environment. Earlier versions of VC++, back to 4.0 may be used in conjunction with the ATL additions that can be downloaded from Microsoft. VC++ is increasingly used to develop ActiveX components for use elsewhere, for example in VB or on the Web. These components have to small and light, and be able to interoperate with whatever their host application is. COM is the Microsoft technology that allows the components to interoperate, while ATL is a tool that simplifies the creation of these components. Where VC++ programmers use MFC to create stand alone applications, ATL is a lighter, faster substitute for creating just components.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

The Active Template Library (ATL) is the part of the Microsoft Foundation Classes (MFC) used to build reusable and very efficient components in C++. Achieving this efficiency can be difficult, as it requires you to delve into the details of Microsoft's Component Object Model (COM) and ATL itself. With Beginning ATL COM Programming, however, it should be possible for any C++/MFC programmer to become productive with this exciting component technology.

The book begins with the basics of COM programming, featuring good details on the actual Win32 APIs used throughout COM programming. (This section also discusses the basics of the component definition, including Interface Definition Language [IDL] and related conventions.) While higher-level classes in MFC make it easier to build COM components, you'll have to do most of the work yourself if you're building lightweight ATL controls. The authors cover such ATL topics as event handling (with connection points), automation and error handling, and properties and persistence for ATL-based components. They use plenty of short, effective code examples throughout this tutorial to illustrate key concepts.

The book closes with an example of Internet Explorer ATL controls (which are leaner) and "full" controls (which can be reused in such applications as Visual Basic). The world of ATL development is rough terrain, but the team of authors here succeeds in explaining a difficult subject clearly. --Rich Dragan

From the Publisher

The book is primarily for Visual C++ developers (although ATL is freely available from Microsoft's web site at present and can be used with some Borland compilers). The reader will be fairly experienced in using MFC, and may well have used the Wizards to produce simple MFC controls in the past. The book is ideal for people who need to get to grips with the principles of COM and the ways in which ATL handles much of the complexity for the programmer

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Product Details

• Paperback: 491 pages
• Publisher: Apress (January 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1861000111
• ISBN-13: 978-1861000118
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7.2 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (39 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #446,362 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars not for beginners, June 12, 2000

By 

Alan Mason - See all my reviews

This review is from: Beginning Atl Com Programming (Paperback)

This book gives a serious coverage of ATL COM that will repay readers' efforts. It's far from easy, and the organization could be improved in places. For example, I'm one of those people who absolutely has to know what's going on "under the hood", but the implementation details come a little early (in Chapter 1). Had to experiment with the order of interface entries in the idl file and think a lot about vtables, interface pointer casting, multiple inheritance, and so on before I began to understand what Chap. 1 is all about. Some more explanation at judicious places in Chap. 1 would be helpful.

To get the most out of this book, download the code from Wrox and fool around with it. This book really covers the nitty gritty of developing ATL COM projects from scratch. Marshaling, threading, connectable objects, persistence are discussed, and a full control is built in Chap. 8.

For some reason, perhaps because the word "beginning" appears in the title, Wrox ranks this book below Professional MFC in difficulty (see the flow chart on the back cover of the book). Actually, it's quite advanced and belongs at the top of the hierarchy. I think it's more detailed and difficult (but also more rewarding) than other books on the subject.

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Read another book, January 14, 2000

By 

Richard Stockdale (England) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Beginning Atl Com Programming (Paperback)

As a VC++ and VB programmer, and the attempted reader of this publication for several months, this book never ceases to amaze me at how thoroughly poor it is in several aspects. I was perplexed by the detail that was covered by the first few chapters - immediately the reader in confronted by implementation details without first explaining the overall concepts. It seems as though the authors, have munged theory, tutorial, and reference together in each chapter, which unfortunately serves only to confuse rather than demystify ATL and COM. Other COM books take different approaches - chapters alternating between theory and practical tutorials. My biggest criticism is that seemingly straightforward concepts are explained to death, whilst the more complicated features are explained extremely poorly.

I fear this book has definitely suffered from the 'too many cooks spoiling the broth' scenario. After a while I sought comfort in other COM pulblications for VC++ and VB, both from WROX and SAMS, which proved considerably better.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars VERY Confusing, December 3, 1999

By 

Scott Gines (Utah) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Beginning Atl Com Programming (Paperback)

This book was very confusing for me, and I am VERY fluent in C++/MFC. The authors used a LOT of really big words that I had no clue what they meant, without defining what they meant. I feel like they didn't sufficiently explain some of the core concepts, such as what an interface is, what a method is, why you would have 2 interfaces in 1 COM componet, etc... The chapters were too long and should have been broken up into more short chapters. They covered several subjects in each chapter. I think that the authors are very bright people who understand COM very well, and when they wrote this, they read it and said, "That makes perfect sense..." without having any newcomers read it.