Amazon.com Review
Effective COM opens with a chapter devoted to the migration from C++ to COM programming, presenting five "attitude shifts" that C++ coders need to undergo to program successfully with COM. It starts with a discussion of defining interfaces in the Interface Definition Language (IDL), and then moves on to a discussion of the unique distribution challenges of COM-based systems. The authors also discuss other differences, such as exception calls.
The next chapter presents tips pertaining to the all-important interfaces in COM. Both the big picture and some precise details are covered to help you implement your interfaces safely, as well as the implementations and the particular challenges that COM presents. The authors emphasize "defensive coding"--pointing out dangerous assumptions and offering suggestions for producing reliable components.
Apartments, security, and transaction management are addressed in succeeding chapters. As with the previous topics, they are handled via a series of specific tips and suggestions. If you're new to COM programming, you should read some more introductory texts first, but if you've already experienced your baptism by fire into the subject, this title can help ease future pain. --Stephen Plain
Review
"COM's `Gang of Four' have distilled years of experience into 50 rules of thumb that all COM developers can benefit from. This book will not teach you the pecularities of IOleInPlaceSiteEx or the subtleties of ATL. Rather, it will improve your designs and your code, and boost you from novicehood through competence towards expertise." -- George V. Reilly, Developer, Microsoft
"It is easy to see why the authors, individually and as a group, are so highly respected. Reading each COM programming tip is like turning on a lightbulb. The ability of the authors to clearly explain complex problems, and then suggest solutions is what makes this book so useful." -- Ranjiv Sharma, Product Architect, Rights Exchange, Inc.
"The comparison to Scott Meyers' Effective C++ is apt. Don't just read Effective COM, internalize its principles." -- Stuart Halloway, Principal, The Halloway Group
"The book is an excellent collection of practical guidelines for COM programmers. The guidelines are explained well, making them easy to apply, and they provide solutions to a wide-range of problems COM developers often face. If you're a COM programmer, especially if you use C++, you'll want this book. It'll help you create better COM designs and help you write more efficient, more robust COM code. I highly recommend it." -- Ted Neff, Software Engineer, Hewlett-Packard
It is arguable that the tardiness showed by the industry in endorsing the COM message and investing in it has at least part of its motivations in the lack of explanatory and comprehensive documentation on the foundations (conceptual and implementative) of the model. Now that the primary hole has been more or less filled by a decent amount of quality literature, including most notably Essential COM, authored by one of the coauthors of this text and reviewed by DDJ's ERCB some months ago, many engineers in the industry are struggling to apply the newly digested paradigm to everyday software projects, often facing unexpected difficulties and uncertainties. The problem lies in the point I made earlier: Many developers have got in touch with COM/MTS and know its theory reasonably well, but they are stuck in the second part of the learning curve -- the one that extends from the theoretical knowledge up to the actual hands-on expertise, the one required to effectively build COM-based systems of nontrivial dimension.
The COM universe is so extremely vast and the paradigm shift so big that it is often very daunting to get acquainted and secure working with it, either as architectural designers or hardcore implementers.
When you find yourself in this situation, any reliable source of suggestions, proven guidelines, and exhaustive answers to recurring doubts would greatly help understand and overcome the many nontrivial issues. That's where Effective COM fits right in. The book can be thought of as a distilled dispenser of 50 rules-of-thumb and clearly explained guidelines stemming from the combined wisdom amassed by the four coauthors in many years of real-world experience and research. Read more--Davide Marcato, Dr. Dobb's Journal -- Dr. Dobb's Journal
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