Customer Reviews

COM and .NET Interoperability

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

 

 

Like Andrew's "C# and the .NET Platform", this book combines an excellent technical overview with nitty gritty examples that detail how to use these technologies in your own development. We followed the book's step-by-step instructions to create a CCW that allows us to use the NET framework's XML digital signature support in our existing unmanaged code. Try cobbling up an XMLDSIG implementation on your own! I can't imagine anyone attempting to use Interop technology without a reference like this.

There may be times when you need to access legacy COM DLL's written in non-managed C++ or Visual Basic. This may be as a stop-gap measure until your older legacy code can be updated to .NET. In cases where performance is critical, you may have no desire to ever upgrade your C++ DLL, but would like to use C# for GUI design, rather than Microsoft Foundation Classes. If any of these situations apply, this is the book for you.

This book begins with a few chapters that will bring the reader up to date on both sides of the GAP. First you are shown the fundamentals of COM objects. Second you are shown the newer .NET architecture. Only by understanding both sides will you be able to make the two effectively communicate. For experienced users, who are already familiar with COM and .NET this section can easily be skipped. The book then continues with an overview of what datatypes are available on each side, and how they cross over.

The real meat of the book comes in the next two sections. Three chapters (the basics, intermediate and advanced topics) are given first for COM to .NET. Then the exact same pattern is repeated from .NET to COM. I spent most of my time with the .NET to COM part of the book, as I was using a C++ DLL with C#. The book answered all of my questions and I was able to successfully implement the application.

The book provides a great deal of good information, but it is sometimes hard to find exactly what you are looking for. Each direction is covered in chapters named the basics, intermediate and advanced topics. What exactly is meant by this is not clear until you begin the chapter. I often found myself skimming all three sections trying to find an example close to what I was doing.

This book is definitely a good starting point. It covers most of the topics, a newcomer would like to see and enables both, the .NET programmer and the COM programmer (which is most likely a VB programmer) to find a way into the material.
What is missing from my point of view is a section which describes the problems that a typical user/writer of legacy code (which COM definitely is from Microsoft's perspective) will have to overcome before he can reuse COM components in the .NET framework and write COM-usable components within .NET.
Here it relies a bit to much on Microsoft's perspective, which is that "the Framework" will do everything for you.
This is however only partly true and many programmers have gone through hard times.
When you start with COM interop, it all seems to easy... but be assured, Microsoft has a lot of work to do for programmers to make it work seamlessly.

Would purchase again. No additional comments. Filler1 Filler2 Filler3 Filler4 Filler5 Filler6 Filler7 Filler8 Filler9 Filler10 Filler11 Filler12 Filler13 Filler14

The very first book of his I bought about three years ago was COM and ATL3.0. The thing I liked about that book was the way the author explained the difficult concepts of ATL and COM in plain english.

He does it again with this book. The book covers all the aspects of Interop services with examples, and explanations are clear and to the point. I was looking for a book that will help me get started on Interop services quickly and this book helped me tremendously.

Great Job Andrew...

most of the books about Interoperability bettwen COM and .NET for the programmer who worked with COM for a long time,but what will happen if you are learning .NET now and you don't know anything about COM (because you are new to programming world),so this book (the only one in the market) for the new developers and for expert developers too,it's easy to understand as all Mr.Andrew books,for me if they sell the book for 200 $ i will buy it,because of the way of explainning the subjects,if you want something about COM and .NET and how they work together FOR YOU without pain then go to the nearest bookshop and get this book now.

FIRST,LET'S SAY THAT MR.ANDREW DO A GREAT JOB IN HIS BOOKS,DO YOU IMAGINE HOW MUCH MONEY HE SAVE IT FOR YOU WHEN YOU READ HIS BOOKS ?
THE BOOK BEGIN WITH OVERVIEW ABOUT COM AND .NET TOO AND IT'S EASY TO UNDERSTAND TOO,THE BSET THING IN HIS BOOKS THE CHRYSTAL EXAMPLES TO EXPLAIN WHAT HE WANT TO SAY,
MR.ANDREW IS THE BEST AUTHOR IN THE WORLD AND A LOT OF MY FRIENDS SAY THAT TOO BECAUSE HE KNOW WELL WHAT HE'S DOING,