Customer Reviews

Learn ActiveX Development Using Visual C++ 6.0 With CDROM

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(8)

 

 

After reviewing this book as a possible candidate for a college class, it is amazing how awfully stupid some companies can be at marketing. Most people who buy computer books can at least read at a college level even if they've never been there. As if the typos were not enough, the examples don't work and as the last commentor explained the code that does work on the CD is completely different from the code in the book. It's a shame that Mr. Wallace can't even walk you through a wizard without breaking the code. If you don't believe how terribly poor a book can be written then pick this up in the book store or order it with the intention of returning it. Richard Grimes's book is much better for beginners and at least the code works right out of the book. Be careful, this book will suck your brain out and make you not want to do any ActiveX development with Visual C++.

Simpy put, this book is of poor quality and has a misleading title. Both the information presented and the printed code are full of errors. Furhtermore the code in the book is not the same as the code on the disk. Much of the code is so bad it takes an excessive effort to get it to compile. The title of the book "... Using Visual C++ 6.0" is an outright lie. The book was written for VC 5.0. The VC 6.0 information was added as an after thought (usually mentioned in the last few pages of each chapter) in an attempt to bring the book upto date before release.

I made the very stupid mistake of buying this book. Please do not commit the same mistake. The book is supposed to "teach" (in order for the reader to "learn") ActiveX development. If this book teaches anything, it is how to use the Wizards to create components. It makes no attempt to explain the mountains of code that the wizards create. Also, some of the examples do not work. I would have loved to have been able to fix them (that is usually how a programmer learns the most), but I lack the knowledge to do it and the book is certainly no help in that department. Then to add insult to injury, the book's web site is under construction and has no listings of errata or any other kind of help.

Although I'm only starting as a C++ programmer, even I could write better code than this guy. I was greatly amused by shortening up his very verbose code examples to just 5 or 10 lines in places.

If you have the time to spend/waste/squander trying to make his programs work as presented in the book, you will learn much about the MS VC++ environment. But trust me - you won't learn much from this book!

Follow the examples step by step and don't enter any data other than what was in the screen shot or, it will blow up. This ranks right at the bottom of the pile with Scott Hillier and Dan Mesick's books. The Tom Armstrong book is outstanding and it's cheaper.

If you are considering buying this book to learn ActiveX, look some where else. This book is not structured with any real logical order in teaching someone how to program. It's not even a good book to teach you how to use the ATL wizard for beginners. It falls short of any proper explaination on any of it's topics. I do not recommend this book for anybody that wants to learn how to program ActiveX.

Most of the sample programs in the book fail to work. But, the program on the cd works but the code is completely different from the code in the book. Also, he creates ATL code with the MFC dependency just so he can use CString. Does the author know how to use standard C++ like maybe basic_string. In addition he never mentions anything about adding metafile support so that you can use the control in something other than the test container nor does he bother much with the OC96 standard. If you're not new to C++ but want to learn about ActiveX controls read Julian Templeman's MFC COM for MFC controls or Richard Grimes Beginning ATL for ATL controls. If you know C++ and stl at all this book will probably rate below most high school beginning programming books. Just make sure that you look at it in a book store first and be happy that Amazon has a return policy.

Don't even think of it.