Customer Reviews

Ivor Horton's Beginning Visual C++ 2010 (Wrox Programmer to Programmer)

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I've mostly used it as a reference in the C++ area and have been learning from the later chapters. I think the book is wonderful, especially in its detail. Since I'm used to math books, I find the author to be on the chatty side, but I think most readers would be very thankful for its many explanations. I recommend this book to anyone serious about learning C++ and Visual C++.

I was currently reading "C++ Primer Plus" from a Kindle download when I wanted to migrate more into Windows programming, so I ordered Beginning Visual C++ 2010. The first several chapters of this book primarily cover C++ console programming so I thought I would just skim through most of this content and get to the Windows stuff. Well, I started picking up some new things not only in C++, but also with the Visual Studio 2010 environment. So I decided not to skip anything. Many of the questions I had about the differences between MFC, CLI, CLR, .NET were answered in this book. I certainly recommend this book if you are new to C++ and new to Windows programming.

I was somewhat doubtful to get the kindle edition on a book with lots of code (which in some books is digitized as picture and is unreadable), but this book works surprisingly well on a Kindle. The code examples are in text, so other than long lines wrapping to next line and messing the formatting somewhat, they are easy to read. The examples can also be DL'd from the internet to be viewed on the conputer screen, and copied to the IDE.

Only the screen shots are difficult to read, but that is not a biggie, given that most of the info is in text.

This is a very good tutorial for the _beginners_, and anyone who has programmed in C will be able to skip much of the book. The first half focuses on how to write C++ console applications, as a book for beginners should.

Taking off one * because the index on the Kindle edition is not linked to the text entries, and is therefore useless =o(

This is a very good C++/CLI/CLR reference, but it doesn't go into as much Visual C++ as I expected. I was expecting the entire book to be devoted to introducing Visual C++, but the majority is devoted to non-visual C++. It is pretty thorough in non-visual C++/CLR/CLI and is a good reference for that, but about two-thirds of the book is devoted to this and the last one-third of the book introduces Visual C++ but I felt it wasn't enough to really learn it. This is a good book for C++ and a good book to have, it just was for a different focus than I had intended.

I read Ivor Horton's Beginning Visual C++ 2010 (BVCP2) to gain some familiarity with the C++ programming language. Prior to this book I read Mr Horton's Beginning C book. Between the two books, I hoped to learn enough about C and C++ to prepare me to read a third book titled Windows via C/C++, 5th Ed by Richter and Nasarre. As a security professional, being able to grasp the essence of C and C++ as they are used in Windows helps me understand security advisories and related discussion of vulnerabilities in exploits. BVCP2 is a great book for a person like me, but it also appears to be the right book for someone who wants to become a legitimate C++ for Windows programmer. I highly recommend it to both sorts of readers.

The author is an expert writer and teacher. It is easy to follow his explanations and he manages to include some humor in what could otherwise be a very dry topic. As a text, like Beginning C, BVCP2 offers numerous complete code examples, clear figures, helpful tables and charts, and exercises for motivated readers. The publisher provides source code for the book's examples plus source code for solutions to the exercises. I liked the concept -> code -> explanation approach, along with the "Try It Out" and "How It Works" examples. Each chapter reinforces key concepts with "What You Learned in This Chapter." It's like an entire class in book form.

One strength of BVCP2 is the author's discussion of native C++ and C++/CLI, i.e., applications for the CLR. The author starts each chapter with native C++ discussions, and concludes each chapter with expansions for C++/CLI. By Ch 12 the author differentiates between using the Windows API, Microsoft Foundation Classes, and using Windows Forms. By comparing these three ways to create interactive Windows applications (as opposed to the console apps of previous chapters), the author really helped me understand their strengths and weaknesses.

A few previous reviewers complained that you need a full version of Visual Studio to follow along. I downloaded a 30 day trial of Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Professional Trial - Web Installer to try some of the code. For example, I really enjoyed how the author had readers compiling and running code right away in Ch 1. Also, a previous reviewer wrote the author will mention a topic briefly, then promise to cover it later. I never had a problem with this tactic, given the scope of the material to be covered.

Overall, I strongly recommend BVCP2 if you want to learn about C++, especially for Windows. The book provided a solid foundation for reading books on Windows programming and internals that I later read.

Reading this book has been a great learning experience. The author's style of writing is very straightforward and extremely easy to follow. I think even people with no programming experience whatsoever would be able to understand the concepts, though they might take a little bit longer to go through each section. Coming from Fortran and VBA, I have found that this book made my transition into C++ very easy. Those who are already experienced in C++, however, may already know most of the subjects the book covers.

I particularly like how the reader is invited to program constantly by following the book's tutorial structure. It certainly makes learning fun and rewarding. The author also makes sure to throw in a couple of jokes here and there, so I don't ever find myself bored when I'm reading it.

The book treats C++/CLI as an extension to standard C++, so you don't necessarily have to learn it to go through the chapters. I like that because it gives you the choice not to build applications under the .NET framework.

All in all, I would definitely recommend this book. Experienced C++ programmers will probably use it as a reference as opposed to a learning guide, so there might be other products that will suit their needs better. Since that was not my case, I am 100% happy with this purchase.

I have previous programming experiences in Visual Basic and Php. This book is very well written and teaches you all you need to build good windows applications in C++. It starts covering the C++ language features building command line applications and then after introduces you to the windows programming world. It is thought to be a fast guide through the C++ programming language and the windows environment. I honestly don't know how easy it would be for a naive in computer programming. You really need some basic knowledge on computer architecture, memory, variables and in general on how a computer program works to really move your first steps through the book. After that you will have no problems! I strongly suggest this book to all who are interested in learning the C++ language for windows programming. Note: the 2010 edition has also a chapter on multiprocessor programming.

I think it's a nice book. It's not geared toward an absolute beginner, but more for someone who dabbles. The author covers a decent amount of material, enough to get you into the next level of programming. He also covers CLI in pretty much the same manner. The first 9 chapters isn't written for experts, but I did find them a pleasant review. A nice chapter on the standard template and another on debugging. Chapter 13 covers parallel programming for multiple cores, I thought it was well done. A real world problem and tutorial type explanations (It's also why I bought the book).

I did find the windows portion of the book disappointing. I expected a bit more considering 9 chapters was devoted toward basic programming. Windows is such a broad topic, I feel cheated because the subject wasn't given as much space and consideration. Still, it covers enough you can do something and expand on it. It's also a beginners book and I'm probably expecting too much.

There's not much fluff to the book. The back when the dinosaurs roamed the world stuff is kept in short notes and is a ya its still legal type cliff notes. He does do alot of, we'll get to that later, but if you already know what's later, then you can understand why he's putting it off. Which is why I said it's not for an absolute beginner. It can be frustrating. It's not a text book that you'd normally expect, though it does have questions and problems to do. I haven't checked the website yet, so there may be more added to the book by now.

I gave it a 5 star because it covers CLI just as well as C++. All the programs I entered worked, without work arounds or having to be modified. Something that is rare. Nor is the author arrogant or puffs himself up with what he knows, which is very rare. The author doesn't stray from the material he's writing about. This can make for some dry reading, but its what I prefer too war stories. He also covers Visual C++ Studio a good bit. I learned about debugging with VC++, which I've ignored up to now.

It is a good start for people that have experience in other computer langeages like pascal, fortran, C.
I think it is a difficult book for people that don't have some experience. Things like heap and stack are not explanied in detail, at least not from the start, so for those that don't have some background knowledge it will be a challenge. On the other hand even for experienced people there is a lot to learn. Good book. Good start.

Well Written, Mr. Horton has done another very fine work. I also have the 2008 copy of this book and look forward to see the changes for 2010.

Thanks Ivor!