Customer Reviews

Designing Component-Based Applications

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An excellent book about Microsoft COM and Microsoft Transaction Server. A real 'Must Read' for anybody who wants to develop multi-tiered apps on the COM/MTS platform. The book explains on 400 pages how COM works (the roles of the interfaces are described with just enough detail to understand the functioning of the Transaction Server), how theMicrosoft Transaction Server manages objects, transactions and database resources, how to use COMTI to connect to SNA, CICS, CICS Link, LU 6.2, IBM Message Queue and IMS, how to connect to XA Transaction Providers etc. The book is a sound mix between background information and hands-on examples. The examples use both VC++ and VB ++. The book leads through the systematic design of data objects, business objects and the different ways to connect to the presentation layer (ASP, RDS w. disconnected recordsets from the client, using the 'OBJECT' tag in IE 4, remote invocation of application layer objects from the browser). The differences between 'simple COM' objects and COM objects that are 'MTS aware' is explained in detail (its fairly simple, but essential to take advantage of the resource and transaction management framework). The book also discusses component packaging, deployment, security and performance considerations. The book takes the 3-2-1 view (3 tier application, developed by 2 people in 1 months). For those that have struggled (or tried to) through technical descriptions of COM, this will be very rewarding reading because Mary Kirtland never forgets about the bigger picture when describing technology details. Finally, the book gives a preview on COM+ (integral part of Windows 2000) and highlights what the major differences between COM and COM+ will be. Its the best explanation of how to build for Microsoft DNA that I have read so far.

This book does a good job of explaining the COM standard from the ground up. The first third is devoted to COM. The rest of the book is an overview of building an enterprise application from the ground up using Microsoft technologies.

I used this book as my primary reference in preparing for the new Analyzing Requirements exam (70-100) in the new MCSD track based on the recommendation of someone I know that passed the beta. It may not be listed as a study guide for the test, but it is far better than the Syngress or Sybex study guide for that test. (They were both fairly useless.)

Everyone always draws the same n-tier diagram and says they are going to build a scalable, MAINTANABLE solution.

This book actually provides a blueprint, not the 30,000 ft view.

At my job, we call it "The Good Book"

After being confused by multiple books on Windows DNA I was very happy to see a book that actually showed and an entire application which utilized this technology. Part I of the book offers a very concise explanation of MTS and COM without getting too deep into the subjects. Part II showed examples of components that the sample project utilized. I enjoyed the fact that the author used both VB and VC++ in her examples. Beyond the examples, the author also offered very good insight into component design and tool selection. It was enough to get you up to speed so that you can look into deeper books on the subject.

This is an excellent overview of Microsoft's DNA and the technologies that make up DNA. The pieces of the DNA puzzle are clearly defined individually and the way they relate to the others. The Island Hopper application sample (maintained up-to-date on MSDN) is a great hands-on intro to the topic. The amount of coverage on topics like COM, MTS, MSMQ, etc. is just right: technically deep enough to help you understand the concepts, short enough to prevent you from shifting your focus from the architecture to technologies contributing to the architecture.

You may try to surf Microsoft's DNA pages to understand the topic (and potentially get lost in the amount of links that span hundreds of different Microsoft technologies) or get this "one" book to really understand what Mr. Gates is talking about for the last couple of years.

This book is a very good introduction of the complete DNA architecture from Microft and about how programs should be designed (from start to finish) to better exploit this architecture. Mary is one of the leading people at Microsoft regarding the COM and DNA architecture and so she knows what she speaks about but, despite this, the coverage of facts is never so deep. The books is about the Island Hopper sample that is available from Microsoft site, explaing it from design to programming to later expansion, covering all the major technologies involved (MTS, MSMQ, IIS, ASP and so on), with samples in Visual Basic and Visual C++. The only major flaw about this book is that is not deep enough and some of the sample explains the same thing over and over, with details about how making things that a professional programmer (the target of this book according to its cover) should know pretty well (like creating VB projects and so on). Beside that I believe this is a must have book for anyone involved in programming related to COM and DNA and should be purchased for its first 100 pages alone, which contains the best overall explanation of the complete DNA architecture and COM that I've ever read.

This book gives excellent end-to-end coverage of developing a 3-tiered system in COM and MTS and is a must read for developers involved in the process. I was happy to see C++ given some attention, but would have liked more coverage of Visual J++ as a development tool for COM. This book covers many practical design, testing and performance tuning topics which other books ignore.

This book is is an excellent resource for someone who wishes to understand Microsoft's vision for three tiered development. It covers some excellent design patterns for encapsulating object persistance through data access components and encapsulating and simplifying your object model through facades. It is also an excellent source of information on MTS, which is a topic that hasn't gotten enough attention by authors.

All in all, an excellent book to buy.

Mary Kirtland has written a terrific resource for those who wish to know more (i.e. go from basic to advanced) on how to program with COM and MTS. I found the example code (and companion CD-ROM) very useful and relatively bug free. Some of the chapters include:

Windows DNA (now .NET)

COM (101)

Data Access Fundamentals

MTS

ASP

Extending MTS

Application Definition and Modeling

Building Data/Business Objects

Packaging

Building the Presentation Layer

Debugging and Troubleshooting (an excellent chapter on a tricky subject)

Performance Validation

Deploying

Extending the Application

COM+ (pretty good for when this was written, it is time to update the book with the latest and greatest, however).

Most of the information here is still relevant, especially to those with a smattering of COM or MTS under their belt and are hungry for more. Everything is wrapped up well with a comprehensive index. Well worth the purchase price. Definitely a must along with "Programming Distributed Apps with MS COM+ and MS VB."

This is an excellent introduction to Microsoft DNA. Mary did a very good job. She handled the total book very well, especially Part II, "Bulding Applicaitons", is highlight. Part I, "Technology overview" is handled with ease and gives lot of information.