Customer Reviews

CGI: Internet Programming in C++ and C

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

 

 

Actually, this book is a 4 as it could be better written. However! Having considered the fact that there really isn't another book on CGI with C, I give it a 5, just to stress that there is more than one way in which a book may be valuable.

The book is helpful if you want to learn how C/C++ fits into writing CGI ends to http requests. It is significantly better than to hack through HOWTO or MAN-style papers, believe me. A word about some of the criticisms below. There are some errors--that is true. However, all C++-related criticism is hogwash. This book is not about C++, but about CGI proggies, that tend to be rather simple. Also, the idea that writing template- and rtti-less C++ code is somehow 'outdated' or 'inferior' is pretty silly and can only come from someone who isn't very sure about C++ himself. Again, the stress is on CGI, if you want a book about large-scale C++ design and development, look elswhere. CGI thingies aren't distributed portfolio management systems. One, in my opinion, real weakness of this book is its price. I'd say, 24.95 would be about right. I woudln't be surprised if it were from Wiley, but from PH it's a bit on the wild side.

I am one of C++ programmers who had been writting C++ codes for years. Recently, I have to write web programming (called CGI programs), and I don't want to learn a new language like Perl or Tcl... So, I wondered around everywhere finding any book that could give me any idea about how to write CGI programs in C/C++, and luckily, I found this book.

While not perfect (from my experience with over 20 C++ books, none is perfect), this book does what it should. Although a lot of codes won't compile without some modification (compiler depends... I compiled them using g++ on IRIX platform, check yours). Anyway, I found it challenging to find bugs in his code, since that helped my understanding of several things (but without bugs is better anyway :-).

Apart from that problems, there are also other drawback points. The most important one is, the author's e-mail address! I was trying to send some mails to ask him some question. However, it seems that the address is wrong.. (although I checked that in the book's homepage!). Well, if anyone know his correct e-mail address, would you please send me that information?

However, I do agree with some reviewers about the price of this book. It should be much cheaper, when consider about the size of the book, and (it is paperback cover..). Anyway, since books for CGI programming in C/C++ are rare, it might be considerable fine....

And why I still gave this book 5 stars? Well, as I said, from my opinion this is one of the best for CGI programming "without" Perl & Tcl book. At least until the better one come out.

This book was well thought out in its presentation of concepts and applications. A definite approach to object programming by the author was great and becomes useful for anyone writing serious CGI programs (not just a visitor's form).

In general compiled C++ programs easily out perform scripting languages. Too bad there isn't more books like this one on this topic. To anyone with some knowledge of C++ or C interested in CGI; this book will be a serious eye opener to the capabilities in a real programming language.

Interesting that this is the only book besides the Boutell book that discusses C/C++ programming specifically for CGI. But there are many errors in the book that leaves me wondering if it would do more harm than good to use it. It has an emphasis on writing routines that could be better written in a scripting language: no templates or run time typing is used making the C++ code approach pretty out of date. It was a good try and sorely needed in the industry, but alas, it needs competition.

...but, for one thing, for the price, this book should come with a CD with all the code...it's a huge pain to type all that is given. Also, the C++ classes (of most concern to me) seem to be overly complex, theres a whole load of member functions to replace the amersands in a query string with newlines, and a bunch of other stuff, where a couple of strtok(); functions would have done the job.

The main strength of this book is that it teaches you the mechanics of how a compiled C/C++ program for CGI works. The string parsing doesn't take much ingenuity either, you just have to know the format.

The author goes to a great deal of trouble to create usable (?) code for C++ classes. However, if understanding CGI's in a compiled language is your goal, it won't be fulfilled with this book. While the code is weak in places, the author has gone out of his way to provide patches and e-mail responses to problems. Overall, the code is decent--the writing is not.

One of the biggest disappointments today in computer books are their inability to write functioning code. There is always something missing or there is actual code error that makes me wonder how important these books are to these writers. For new users, these kinds of errors are nerve racking. Look on page 76 for the main() function in C++ form. When running the code you'll get errors such as: File "main.cp"; Line 18 Error: function 'get_msg' has no prototype because get_msg was not previously defined. If my information is incorrect, I'll be more than happy to be corrected. Overall, the book was good at getting the point across. I do recommend an intermediate to advanced programmer to look at this book because it has some code that works correctly.

A clear, complete, and technically substantial introduction to CGI for C/C++ programmers. One of BEST written programming books I've ever read! The presentation of topics is well organized, and code examples are well thought-out and very informative. Includes useful practice problems at the end of each chapter. Errors in code are a very, very minor problem in what is an outstanding book. Best recommendation for learning CGI.

I can't believe I wasted $50.00 on this book.

I don't know if the author assumes that if your reading a tutorial on CGI that you have a good deal of knowledge on CGI and it's layout already, or if he just can't write. There was not nearly enough background as far as which files go where, and how they interact, and how to set it up. He just goes write into programming it.

I am a senior computer science major and all that is taught is C++ yet, his sample c++ code sucked, and left me confused. It was not at all well explained, and used a style which I was just not familar with.

I do not know CGI any more than I did before, it is just an awfully written book.

If you've bought the book and using winnt/2000(VStudio), it may help to know that standard cin will timeout. Try this concept.
#include <iostream.h>
#include <stdio.h>
void main()
{
char buff[1000];
int con_len = atoi(getenv("CONTENT_LENGTH"));
cout<<"Content-type: text/html\n\n";
(con_len)?cin.get(buff,con_len),cout<<buff:NULL;
}
The author of this book should have researched more using Windows. Ok book if you're using server soft designed for UNIX ie:Apache, but only really deserves 2-3 stars.
It could have been written better.