Customer Reviews

Professional Com Applications With Atl

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

 

 

The main thing that I have against this book is that its is neither "Professional" nor "Beginning" book. Authors spend a lot of time talking about things that should be familiar if not obvious for professional COM programmer, but fail to spend enough time on subjects that really matter like ATL. Although they stated that no prior knowledge of ATL or COM is required, if this is a case you probably won't understand the book at all. Good example is OLE DB chapter: talking a lot about relational database theory, ODBC, OLE DB but not enough about ATL database access templates. It's a typical bloated book teaching you how to repeat the project that authors did and nothing else. If you have some COM experience this book is a waste of time (you won't learn ATL from it - at least not as much as you would like). If you are new to COM you won't use it either, as it will not explain COM or ATL enough for you to understand.

As someone with a basic knowledge of COM (gained through VB, VJ++ and MTS) this book cleared up several nagging questions that I had about low level COM and COM terminology. It also got me started with ATL. However, I found that the book suffered from being both too detailed and too selective. When the authors tackled a topic they tackled it in excruciating detail. Unfortunatley the topics where chosen from too many different subject areas resulting in incomplete coverage of any one subject area. In the end I felt that I learned a lot about certain topics but I hadn't learned enough core ATL to build a real application. The back cover states that "no prior knowledge of COM or ATL is assumed, as the book gives a full tutorial on both." It is true that this book begins with the very basics of COM and ATL but the coverage is by no means 'full'. After about 300 pages I made a list of all of the _basic_ things that I thought I would need to know to work with ATL on a daily basis. This list was based on my experience with VB, Java, C++, and OO in general. At the 300 page mark this book had covered between 1/4 and 1/3 of my list. I just didn't get what I needed from this book fast enough.

I bought this book looking for a beginning text on COM and ATL 3. I know this is in Wrox's "Professional" series but the back of the book claims it is suitable as an introduction to ATL/COM for the experienced Visual C++ programmer. Also, neither of Wrox's ATL/COM "Beginning" books covers ATL 3. Well, It proved to be a very poor introduction. I was overloaded with details from the first few pages of the book and ended up absorbing little until I gave up. A coworker of mine had the same complaint.

I've since read Inside COM (which is a good introduction) and done some COM programming. Now I use Professional COM/ATL as a reference and it is a good book in that regard. It contains the best coverage I've found for using MTS and MSMQ in C++.

So if you use this book as a reference and to get pieces of information as you need it, you'll probably find it pretty good. But if you try to read it straight through as a learning tool you're likely to be frustrated.

The book contains grammar errors, inconsistencies, and incorrect function names (DoCreateInstance) which make a complex topic even more confusing. Also, the book is worded poorly and written in a very unclear manor which makes it hard to understand. After reading four chapters in this book, read some chapters in a MS Press book on a similar topic, and the difference in readability was very obvious. When a technical book contains these types of errors, it makes the reader lose credibility for the authors. It makes one wonder, if they have errors in their documentation, do they also have errors in their instructions?

I read this bood as an introduction to COM. The back of the book says that anyone with a strong understanding of programming and C++ can learn COM from this book. The first two chapters were good, but in chapter three the author went into developing a COM application. For someone with no COM experience it was too much of a jump. I stopped reading the book about half way through chapter three and read Inside COM. It was a great introduction. I then went back to this book and found it to be a very good tutorial on using ATL, MTS and MSMQ in developing and using ActiveX and OLEDB COM applications. The As these are all very important things to know, I highly recommend the book; however, only after one receives a thorough introduction to COM elsewhere.

Good content but poorley explained at times.
Usefull for ATL controls as it has usefull information, if only it was better explained with more complete examples then it may have rated a 5. Still I believe it is a usefull book but I would welcome a later edition which gave controls a fuller explanation.

I found this book especially helpful with MTS and MSMQ. There were also a great deal of examples on how different paramter types were passed to COM objects created in ATL.

I would suggest this book to anyone who is developing COM objects in ATL and is using MTS.

I did however find mistakes in the debugging procedures for components in MTS. For the correct way to do it, you need to see the MSDN documentation of debugging VC++ components.

I was also a little disappointed that the book seemed to be a re-hash of their ActiveX/COM Control programming book with the added features of MTS/MSMQ. Overall though, this is acceptable knowing the new information I gained from the book.

It is a excellent book, the thread modeling/apartment discussion in Chapter 2 is unique, and already worth the price. I found the rest of the book also well orginazed, it is a real practical book for writing COM applications.

If the first version of this book ( Professional Visual C++ 5 ActiveX/COM Control Programming ) was wonderful, this second version is excellent. The book takes you through the development of a real world three-tier application and along the way you get to learn a lot about The Microsoft Component Services (MCS) technology. It teaches you how to build flexible client-side ActiveX controls and DNA business objects for your middle-tier using DCOM, MTS, MSMQ and Universal Data Access using OLE DB and how to tie all these together to create robust applications. The authors do not assume any prior knowledge of COM or ATL on the part of the reader and they go about teaching you the concepts, reinforcing them with real world examples. The other unique feature of the book is the authors' identification and illustrations of design patterns used by COM. All the code is written in Visual C++ and sometimes tested out using VB. On the whole a great reading experience. We need more books like this one.

I read this book & recalled the Charles Petzold days. Let me tell you I am not reminiscent of those days. However, their introduction reminded me of Petzold's Programming Windows 3.0 book. That's how antiquated I believe the introduction to be. The same holds true for the remainder of the book & its coverage. The only good thing I can say about this book is the fact that it mentions classes such as CComBSTR. When transitioning from MFC to ATL, MFC die-hards try to make a strong argument in favor of MFC with CString. Besides the fact that MFC can be contained in ATL @ the expense of code dependence & a larger memory footprint, CComBSTR allows for a counter offensive. @ any rate, @ one point, the author himself considers getting back on track so as to avoid having the reader throw the book away. I must confess, a short while after, I did just that! I believe, your time is better spent elsewhere...