Customer Reviews

MFC Programming with Visual C++6 Unleashed with CDROM

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

I wish I'd read these reviews before buying this book! It is dreadful, I've tried 3 times to get something out of it and each time just shake my head in disbelief and walk away from it. Chapter 1 just throws a whole bunch of stuff at you, seems to me that unless you already know it you aren't going to be able to follow it. Very usefull. Chapter 2 starts off like a tutorial - you think you are about to create a simple dialog application. Suddenly it leaves you hanging, shows you a picture of the finished dialog, goes on to describe all possible controls that you might want to add to the dialog, but not how to add them! So I went to the source code on the accompanying CD - source for this chapter won't compile as it references files that are not there. Within the chapter 2 directory is an OpenGL program that isn't mentioned in the text at all. I'm interested in OpenGL so compiled it. It works, but what is it supposed to do? Where is the data for it?

I've been programming in the scientif and engineering fields for 15 years. I consider myself pretty intelligent and a whiz programmer. I found this book completely useless. If I hadn't damaged the cover I'be demanding my money back.

I think someone just wanted to make some money with a catchy title and a lot of unrelated articles written by different people. I feel ripped off.

If you are new to MFC, like I was, stay away from this book. It is completely useless for a beginner since I doesnt really cover the basics. Reading it will just confuse you. A few of the chapters can be helpful once you become an expert, but it's not worth the money.

I couldn't wait to get this book because it covered quite a bit.
The selling points for me were the chapters on Multimedia (including OpenGL, and DirectX) with MFC, and Scripting an MFC Application. The OpenGL chapter was effective because it worked and I saw all the steps. I never tried the DirectX because reading it seemed like it took for ever to get down to the point. To me, good programming books take a code first, explain later approach (as long as they remember to explain) or an explain as you code approach, but never explain everything then code.

As it turns out, this book touches on quite a bit of key topics in MFC programming. However, some times it doesnt take you to the point of having practical knowledge. For example, the section on building an ActiveX control with MFC never explains how to implement the events your control will fire -- a point that I was most interested in. Perhaps the gravest shortcoming was the sections on Active Documents. Another key feature of MFC programming (very interesting) that didn't get proper treatment. Maybe it's just me, but even though it gave a brief explaination of the many different parts that go into Active Documents, it didn't put it all together in an eye opening way. To it's credit, the book does provide an example of building an Active Document server, and it reveals something very important -- there is little difference from the programmers perspective in handling applications with and without active document support. The only problem I have with the example is that it doesn't point out where a whole bunch of the pieces it just talked about (i.e., COleDocIPFrameWnd, COleServerItem, etc.) fit in, nor how we should use them.

This book has potential, but it wastes a bunch of space by having definitions of documented functions, and MFC source code, and function prototypes in it.

I'd save my 50 bucks for something else if you're thinking of getting this book.

I bought this book for having an advanced MFC reference since I had already a good experience in MFC programming (since VC 4.0). I found this book hard as a reference, it hasn't answered most of the daily questions I have had in everyday MFC programming i.e. lacks the detailed explanation of how the MFC framework works not to tell some deeper concepts I expected it to decently explain like MFC sockets and multi-thread programming.

The author shows to have read and reproduced faithfully the MSDN online *free* help instead of teaching and sharing with the readers his knowledge and experience. I do not recommend this book, after all the online MSDN is free.

Good and detailed sections on the parts of MFC not always found in other books such as Internet programming, OpenGL, COM, etc.

Its a good complement to the more step by step books such as Learn VC++ in 21 days and others. The narrative is a little dry and tiring in places and some of the example code is a little under explaned. Overall a valuable asset to the new or experienced Visual C++ developer.

Just got it and it has some excellent step by step instructions for the "newbie" to VC++. My favorites are examples of sock programming for gathering data from the internet! George

They should have named this "1300 pages of (...) Unleashed". There are very few sections in this book that give even a basic example of how to create or implement the things you are reading about. It seems like they cut and pasted hundreds of small articles together and called it a book. There is no flow to the book, making it impossible to read. Half of this book is just a bunch of useless definitions. I bought this because it claims to cover an impressive number of topics, but that coverage is some of the worst I've ever seen. A complete waste of money.

I wasn't too happy with this book. The only good thing about it is the fact that it covers a broad range of topics. However, in covering each topic, problems arose. There is a SERIOUS lack of detail. For instance, it will give the heading "Creating a Custom Component" and under that section, it basically shows you code snippets from an already created component. It does NOT go through the steps of creating one. The whole reason I bought this book was for step by step creation of components! <sigh> This is also done with the OpenGL stuff. For the contents of this particular section, one of the portions says "Add the custom view class you will create in this section to your project". When you go to that section, it says, and I quote "Select Project, Add To Project, Files, then select GLView.cpp and GLview.h... This, however, presupposes tha tyou have the CGLView class, so now is a good time to examine the mechanisms for running OpenGL from within a view". Then it gives a brief skim-over of how the class works, but not how it's integrated into the project or even how it's created.

Also, different writers wrote different sections. This destroys any flow that may have possibly existed. Every chapter is written differently, none of which have a good Step-By-Step flow. Anyone who is familiar with programming books knows that a Step-By-Step flow is an integral part of any quality resource.

What a book! Has various hard-to-find topics all in one huge book. Includes database, network/socket, .... and even a section on reading/writing to Windows registry. After reading these sections, you will have advanced your MFC programmng skills by at least two levels.

The book is full of definitions. It seems not to be for Intermediate to Advanced. Tell me if the text below from the book is for intermediate or for dummies: ToolTips are small, yellow text windows that appear over certain dialog controls after after the mouse pointer stops for a moment(:(. The button control is an information request control(:(. So on for every control (all the Chapter 2). (Chapter 4) Text is very important to users of computer programs,... A bitmap is an array of bits that form an image of some kind. And so on and on and on .... Keep your money for a good lunch instead.