Customer Reviews

Network Programming for Microsoft Windows (Microsoft Professional Series)

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I purchased this book for coverage of the Winsock 2.0 API and found it to be an excellent Winsock API Reference and much more. The text was very well laid out. I'm a C/C++ programmer as well as a beginner VB programmer, and I too thought the examples were clear, practical, and to the point. I disagree with dave's comment below and woudl recommend this book to anyone interested in learning network programming on the Window's environment.

I thought the book well laid out and easy to read. My main intrest in this book was to get a better Winsock reference, so I skipped over the first several chapters of this book. I found that it did much better job of addressing EACH of the Winsock API functions than any of the documentation I've seen to date. I'm a C/C++ programmer, not a VB programmer, and I thought the examples were clear, practical, and generally better than most. It was just what I was looking for.

These days any developer is capable of throwing together a network server application, but developing a truly efficient and scalable server is akin to black magic for most. This update covers the material well, and gives the reader excellent advice on how to build better networking software with an understanding of what is going on behind the scenes.

My one nit would be that the examples don't compile out of the box with VC 6.0 on either NT or Win2k, even with fairly recent platform SDK headers. After a bit of error tracing and reading the book, I found that most were written using new name resolution functions found in XP, and while they will work with older platforms, it required downloading the latest platform SDK... Since you can't download just the headers, you're going to need either a fast connection or a lot of time.

It would have been nice to have this documented in the book, the code or at least in a 'readme.txt' file. Since the SDK is available for free, why not stick it on the CD since you can't work with the books material without it?

As a professional networking software tester I have read atleast parts of most of the network programming books out there, andthis is the best of them so far. As previously mentioned the authors concentrate primarily on Winsock and mostly on C/C++ (as any serious network programmer should in both cases). Since this book does cover so many subjects though, some of the more peripheral subjects are mentioned relatively briefly, but hey, that's what SDK's are for. Concentrating on the main subject the authors do a great job of explaining Winsock and its application. I was particularly impressed by the comprehensive way in which they covered the differences between protocols, and between operating systems. It was also impressive (especially for an MSPress book) that they point out all the idiosyncracies and occasional bugs in the different implementations of Winsock. Obviously this book is intended for at least an intermediately skilled programmer, but should work well as a reference and an introduction to new topics (such as QOS, multicasting, and LSP's) to even more experienced coders.

To allay the conspiracy fears of those Linux people out there, I am not affiliated in any way with Microsoft Corporation or MSPress.

Hi.

I bought this book about four months ago. I wanted to learn winsock and develop simple network programs for Windows.

This book offers everything I need to develop small scale programs such as an FTP client and large scale programs such as an FTP server. Anthony Jones and Jim Ohmund do a great job explaining useful winsock tools in detail via concrete examples. Furthermore, they demonstrate powerful non-blocking I/O models including WSAAsyncSelect, WSAEventSelect, Overlapped Model, and Completion Port Model. To top it off, there is a section where they give a recommendation as to which model is best depending on the project.

Network Programming for Microsoft Windows Second Edition is an excellent reference for winsock IPv4 and IPv6 programming in Microsoft Windows. This book definitely provides network programmers lots of tools. In fact, there are chapters that go way beyond the basics for the typical and simple network programs. For example, the authors go over registration, name resolution, multicasting, generic quality of service, winsock service provider interface, and remote access service. Lastly, there are two chapters reserved for C# and VB programmers.

I highly recommend this book for advanced C++ programmers and winsock programmers.

Kuphryn

As with most technical books, the code doesn't work right off of the pages. And since it's now 2005, 3 years after the printing of this book, another edition is needed. Network programming is a very large subject to cover. If you know nothing of network programming, then this book is an okay starting point. Be prepared for some fairly complex topics right from the begining. The book covers network programming using C++, C#, and VB. Also, check the web page located in the front pages of the book to fix code errors throughout the book. In all honesty, I would recommend against buying this book and instead purchasing a more thourough network book, such as Windows Sockets Network Programming.

The C++ code after Chapter 1 in this book will not work unless you have the latest Platform SDK installed. So don't buy this book unless you meet the OS requirements for the latest Platform SDK. As of February 2003 the Platform SDK requires Windows XP, Windows 2000, Microsoft Windows NT 4.0 SP6, or Windows Server 2003. The SDK is NOT supported on Windows 95, Windows 98, or Windows Millennium Edition.

I don't have any of the required OS's so running the code in this book is impossible for me. I'm not going to unfairly judge the book because of this, however. I suppose if you're a serious developer you should probably be developing on one of the required platforms anyway. I have learned a lot from this book and I could get some of the code to work with MAJOR tweaking. It's true that a lot of this book is just stuff that you could find all over the MSDN Library, but it is very nice to have it all in one book. It starts from the basics and slowly leads into more advanced topics which would be difficult to do if you're only using the MSDN Library.

I don't regret buying the book, and in a strange way, since I had to do so much intense research on the Winsock functions and syntax to tweak the code enough to get it to work, maybe I learned a little more than I would have if the code had just "worked out of the box". I don't recommend learning this way though, it's very frustrating. I think it's a great book if you can get the code to run, if not, then stay away.

If you need to do network programming on the Windows platform I strongly recommend you get this book. This book provides very complete coverage on the subject with good explanations and nice code samples. NetBios, Mailslots, Named Pipes, and Winsock are all covered, with the vast majority of the book devoted to Winsock. This is dense reading so expect to spend time with this book. But the payoff is a detailed understanding of network programming on the Windows platform. This book is for intermediate to advanced programmers only, beginners stay away. I hope this helps J.

Authors tend to obfuscate topics they don't entirely grasp; and very few master the intricacies of difficult subjects, especially those such as network programming. Jones is to Windows programming what Stevens was to Unix. Here you will find, concise language, solid experience and real-world industrial-strength examples. Especially notable is the extensive coverage of the various I/O models and their applications. If you have only one book on network programming in your library... Make it this one!

This book is an enjoyable read because it explains the WinSock, TCP, ATM and QOS on the MS systems in a clear and concise manner. After reading the book I had a better understanding of the MS networking API and what kind of support MS has for network programming on their systems. Most of the code is in C and very simple, however I was hoping to see more complex examples; but I guess that that could be saved for a book on serious networking implementation. I gave this book five stars because it gives the reader an understanding quick. It introduces some new things like completion ports. Its good to have it if one needs to work with or program on MS systems. Good book this!