Customer Reviews

Microsoft Visual C++ .NET Step by Step (Step by Step (Microsoft))

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

When my library got this book, I just had to grab it to catch up on the new Visual C++ .net. As an intermediate C++ student, I thought that this would get me up to speed on the new Microsoft .Net and was willing to wade through what appears to be material for beginners. Unfortunately, it seems that many topics are too lightly treated for any beginner. And most intermediate programmers have to skim through a lot of material to find what makes .Net so different from ANSI C++.

It seems to me that the authors can't decide which audience level to address. Again, most beginners are going to be frustrated with the much too light treatment of many topics. Intermediate and (certainly) Advanced programmers will prefer something else that presents a nice compact discussion and examples of the new .Net material.

In short, buy something else.

This is a good book if you are looking to take a step up from Console programming to more advanced stuff. It teaches you the new .NET features in a pretty effective manner. There are a lot of errors however. I read this book and did the actual step by step follow-along. I had the errata webpage open the whole time because there were dozens of cases where in the actual code examples they would leave out a keyword that was critical to your program. It also came with code for everything in the book on CD so if I got to a point where my code didn't work or their instructions were too vague, I was able to open their code and compare. Interesting enough, the code on the CD frequently strayed from the instructions in the book. It was almost like they wrote the book and when they read through it to actually do the coding the book talks about, they said, "Hey, that doesn't work!" But then they never changed it in the text. I would not recommend it to complete beginners for that reason. For those who aren't complete beginners, keep your eyes open and check out the errata site.

Poorly written and not text book quality. Many code errors incorporated into text. If this is the best that Microsoft has to offer, it will seriously impeed their marketing efforts of .Net to academic institutions and student population.

I found this book to be disappointing. Like so many other programming books it supposedly starts off at a pace for a beginner. However, it spends too much time on basic syntax, which I assume most programmers are familiar with, or are familiar with other programming languages and could make the adjustment quickly to basic C++.

It does give a few important introductory points on the new managed classes, to its credit. However one-half of the way through the book the author begins to leave C++ and give "glimpses" of the .Net features of C++, which are much too vast to cover even simplistically in such a small space. The topics quickly became so far from what I wanted to learn about C++ that it was hard to believe they were covered in the same book as the simplistic syntax lessons at the beginning. I came away from this book more confused as to what I could do with C++ .Net than before I read it.

I don't know who this book is intended for, but it is definitely not for those wanting an tutorial on core .Net C++ without the excessive syntax explanations that fill the first half of so many programming books.

The book wades through managed C++ code, and it is very good. However, the author doesn't do a good job of maintaining consistency and explaining the code. I will credit the author for having very good OOP style, but the writing is far from satisfactory. Another thing to note is that the author does a good job of explaining Exception Handling, but in the early parts of the book, any reader can get easily confused.

I have bought the following C++ books before
Accelerated C++: Practical Programming by Example
by Andrew Koenig, Barbara E. Moo
Desktop Applications for Microsoft Visual C++ 6.0 MCSD Training
Distributed Applications for Microsoft Visual C++ 6.0 MCSD Training
The first one is sure not for begineer and I was definitely misleaded by the numerous excellent reviews in ... to buy this one. I even questioned whether developers in the IT fields will write programs in such manner. May be the second and the third one is aimed for certification, it touches everythings in Visual C++ in quite a superficial way. It is difficult to grap the complicated stuffs inside.
But for this one, I have just read the first 8 chapters, it is an excellent book for me. The tutorial format with simple but good and clear enough examples. I can really grap all the concepts easily this time. This book really meets the purpose of Step by Step Series - Learn core programming skills with these hands-on, tutorial-based guides designed to walk any developer through the fundamentals of Microsoft's programming languages in this. And I may buy the Programming series after this one for professional level.

For those who complain this books too light, I think they are wrong, please read the purpose of Step by Step series before making comment. This books really meets the purpose.

If they want the more advanced one, they should buy the Programming with Microsoft Visual C++.Net instead which is designed to be the best single-volume explorations of professional-level software tools and technologies, Programming books provide expert guidance and instruction-coupled with a full cache of reusable code and other resources on CD-ROM-to help expedite your productivity. Part of the Microsoft Programming Series. (i.e copy from MSPress)

I believe Mr. Maschiach's 03/31/2002 review captures the essence of this text perfectly--it's a "Hello World" primer, but its 626 pages do little more than scratch the surface of VC++ .NET progamming. It's essentially a "Teach Yourself" book that will certainly get you in the door, but as such does little to provide valuable techniques for solving real business problems. Although I'm certainly no VC++ .NET expert, the lackluster instruction left me touting C# as the preferred means to the same end simply because of C#'s abundant reference material. Perhaps MS intends this by design to depolarize the VC++ and VB camps, and is therefore favoring C# overall...

Lastly, and indeed surprisingly considering the publisher, the book wants for editorial review due to numerous typographical errors and omissions. This is particularly frustrating when applied to syntactical examples. Perhaps MS Press will release "Microsoft Visual C++ .NET Step by Step Service Pack 1" to correct these deficiencies.

To summarize, I hate this book because you can't use it without reading it through from page one. I use this book for a class I am enrolled in. One of our projects is to build a simple windows game. So, I look up how to display a bitmap. Displayed are two lines of code along with the instructions "find the Form_1Paint function that handles Paint events". Where should I look? The instructions do not hint at where it is and certainly the function can't be found by searching the code. The only way to understand what they are talking about is to actually go through every tutorial in baby-step fashion because every page on the book tells you something such as "Continue with the CPPDraw application from the previous excersise" (p.365). Well I don't want to read the whole )@$#%ing book to find out how to draw a bitmap. When I finally do figure it out I am guessing I could show someone how to do it in 10 lines of code so they wouldn't have to read 100 pages of baby-step drivel. If you want to find out how to do any one thing in .Net with this book expect to have to spend several hours reading the previous 100 pages from where it is supposedly explained. Microsoft Press should consider making encryption a core of their business. They are really good at it.

I was tempted to give this book 1 star, but it does give a small (if extremely inconsequential) introduction to Managed C++. I get the impression that the author wants to coerce his reader into learning ANSI C++, because so much is left out (or glossed over). Given the choice to use either .NET methods or old-style code, the author goes with the older style -- it's total confusion.

In comparison, the Visual C# .NET Step by Step and Visual Basic .NET Step by Step books are a *lot* better.

It's kinda scary that a book released by MS press about an MS product can have so many errors...

I gave up and returned my copy after I'd read about 40 pages because my confidence dropped like a stone due to missing code, bugs & incorrect instructions (for example, F10 and F11 are not the debug step/into keys, try F8 and Shift F8!).

In addition the layout was pretty dire and the subject matter seemed to jump from pillar to post. As a reader and pupil, I was often left wondering why I had been instructed to write some code that now seemed to have no bearing on the rest of a chapter.

Perhaps the 2nd edition will fix most of these problems. However until then my advice would be to avoid this book like the plague...

It's a shame because there was real potential there; the writing style was pretty easy going and understandable. However, that alone does not a good book make.

For this edition: a sad and dismal 1/5 and without doubt the worst .NET book I've read to date.