Customer Reviews

Beginning Mfc Programming (Instant)

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

 

 

The author is definitely in my list of people who is capable of explaining concepts clearly and at reasonable length. To be fair to the book, it is not trying to be all things to all people - it presumes some knowledge of Windows and a reasonable knowledge of C++ and gives you a reasonable knowledge of MFC. You will need to get another book later on without a doubt, but that's what you would expect from a book titled "Beginning..." With this in mind I think this book does an excellent job - especially if your the type of person who likes to be hand-held just a little and you prefer explanations that are longer rather than shorter. Still, MFC is not for whimps and you will have to put on your thinking cap. If it does rely on automatic code, as another review suggests, then I would suggest that you learn about that in more advanced tutorials - I am glad there weren't chapters on understanding code that the wizard generates in a "beginning" book! Similarly, the paper used explaining mundane things is something I'm prepared to wear and for someone who is used to using Borland C++, are often extremely useful. Excellent book that achieves what it aims to do.

Approximately a decade ago, I was teaching an accelerated program in computer science and one of the sections covered advanced C++ programming using Microsoft Foundation Classes (MFC). This book was the text selected for that section and I was not part of the selection process. Therefore, I had some reservations about the situation, but fortunately, those fears proved groundless. Horton does an excellent job in presenting the principles of MFC programming and using it, I was able to give the students some rather advanced programming projects.
The students voiced no major complaints about the book; the most severe was that if they read the chapter(s) before class they occasionally found them confusing. However, when they re-read them after class, the material made sense. Therefore, I found this book to be a sound introductory text for classes in programming with Microsoft Foundation Classes.

I wouldn't rate it as high as Ivor's book on Java but it is very good. Good examples and easy reading. Although MFC will be going by the wayside in the next couple of years I would like to see Ivor do an intermediate/advanced MFC 6 or 7 book. I like his style that much. I can't think of any typos in the example code, if there were they were small and / or obvious. This book helped greatly in getting through a difficult 1st term MFC course. The only thing missing in this book (no books on this subject are to be found anywhere) is MFC and ODBC, DAO, ADO, OLE DB. Maybe everyone wants to do DB stuff the easy way... in VB. Well worth the $...I spent on it used.

It does give a good introduction to MFC. Plus as another review said, it shows how to make a *real* application. with functionality even.. not just code snippets. and you can keep on adding to it. so it's pretty cool. the stuff on database... I dunno.. database isn't my bag. and it's not a good way to learn database programming at all. but other than that it's pretty good.

I recommend getting a book on programming windows that uses *only* the win32 api. such as the charles petzold classic...

It is a nice book, considering its promises: for beginners, focus on MFC and assuming readers have decent knowledge on C++ and OOP.

I like the style by adding code to previous version on the way of learning. The explanation is enough except last 3 chapters, but which are sort of beyond the scope of a beginning's book. However, you can still get a taste of the advanced topics like ActiveX and ATL.

I went through the first ten chapters twice. The second time around it all started to make a lot more sense. The book would be great if the author took the time to explain terminology a bit more or "why" certain things were being done. It feels a bit like "follow these steps" but you don't know the WHY. I augmented the book with other MFC books to fill in the WHYS. The application you build is truly neat and you will find yourself adding to it. The last couple of chapters on database programming, ActiveX and using ATL are useful in obtaining a little taste on those topics but the chapters are just appetizers. I am looking forward to reading the other books in the WROX series.

Ivor Horton's book is very detailed and comprehensive enough for a beginner with a decent knowledge of C++ programming language. Sometimes details become a little overwhelming, but it's because Visual C++ is a very advanced tool and there's a lot of it. Considering that I haven't seen any better books on MFC/Visual C++, so it's a pretty sure bet.

The title of the book should be Beginning MFC Programming with Visual C++. I took the book because I felt that it would actually teach me MFC programming, and it does, but it relies too heavily on the automatic code generated by Visual C++. The approach taken is interesting in that the author starts work on one application, and continues developing it in subsequent chapters, illustrating points about MFC along the way. It seems like a nice/good idea, but I felt it just muddied the water, by adding new things on to an older version of the same program. The book progresses logically. The explanations are clear, but often much paper is wasted explaining mundane things like how to place a dialog control in a certain place on a dialog box. The author also spends a disproportionate amount of time in explaining the more complex issue of mapping modes. In summary, if you want a book that will make you feel as if you are progressing fast, and painlessly, then you can read this book and it may help you. After reading it I switched to Programming Windows 95 with MFC by Jeff Prosise. The difference was clear. The focus is totally MFC.

The first 10 or so chapters (through database programming) are well-written and teach a lot about MFC. As the core of the book, anyone who knows C++ will get a good grasp of how MFC works through those chapters. However, when the author starts to dive into COM he loses focus. To be true to the title, the last part of the book should have stuck more to MFC . Instead, I spent a lot of time writing code on interface libraries and other things I really don't understand. I would have given this book a lower rating except that those last few chapters got me hooked on COM, and I want to know more.

This book is simply amazing! It starts by teaching you the basics of Win95 and MFC, and leads you to advanced stuff. If you know c++, and have'nt got a clue on Windows programming, this book is a must! gives you a good grasp on the material and a good base to start from.