Customer Reviews

Programming Collaborative Web Applications with Microsoft® Exchange 2000 Server (DV-MPS Programming)

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

 

 

This book does an OK job of going over the different methods with which one may intereact programmatically with Exchange 2000. However, the quick overview gives the basis for technologies such as ADO, CDO, and XML (which is what Microsoft touts as the real "killer" use of Exchange 2000), but it doesn't go far enough to get any worthwhile programming for more advanced users. Nor does it give enough of a background to really bring beginner programmers up to speed.

What's more, the applications used for demonstration in this book seem too close to standard SQL Server based apps. It almost seems as the writer forgot that Microsoft already put out a great techonolgy for dealing with large pools of data. It's called a database. The whole thing reminded me of the beginner developer who just learned the basics of client-server (or ASP) programming with a small Access database and then tries to roll out a production level application to his company. You all know the guy who's done this, and you pull your teeth out trying to get the darn thing to work since it's so slow and sloppy.

Bottom line-Go to MSDN for real examples on programming with and for Exchange. You'll save the money and be less frustrated.

This book is full of teasers. It starts to show you how to do something (which is the part that can be written by one of the VB wizards) then defuncts to "enter code here" where you're supposed to do something. It also spends a lot of time explaining CDO, which is great, but does not tell you how to implement your CDO application on the Exchange server.

However, there is a lot of helpful information on implementing Event Sinks on the Exchange server except for the final registration step where you can use ADO or the VBS provided with Exchange. It doesn't explain how to implement the ADO registration, and the VBS command line wants a URL to your target folder that starts as /backoffice/... where did that come from?!

The book also fails to take into account the developer who wants to modify incoming emails (not create new ones, not move them around) before they are saved to the folder, and doesn't even mention the fact that in order to access MAPI through recordsets you need to use the HEX values for the MAPI properties. Good luck finding a list of the HEX values!

In the end, this book is another rehash of Exchange 2000 documentation what was poorly written in the beginning, and lacking on crucial details that apparently nobody has devled into because they are just too difficult.

This book is a good, solid introduction to the Exchange 2000 Web Storage System. It describes the fundamentals of how to build collaborative applications, but it's clearly intended more for the back-end programmer. Those who complain "oh, the code is in VB" are missing the point; it's trivial to adapt the provided code to run as ASP, and in most cases where changes are necessary the author points out how to make them.

This book is atrocious...plain and simple. There isn't a single thing in here that couldn't be gathered by glancing at the SDK documentation. Not to mention, it's wrong!! When was the last time you were able to access objects via the ipp provider and have your way with them?? according to this book...you can...interesting...

If you think this will help you with using Exchange for web applications, think again. The first chapter that mentions the web is Chapter 12 on page 533. All the examples up til then are in VB. On the positive side the book gives a fairly detailed theoretical background to the Exchange 2000 development environment, but it still leaves me looking for a book on Exchange 2k web development.

This book does not provide enough technical detail to teach you how to program for Exchange 2000. Furthermore, the title claims "Web Applications", which is really thin in this volume.

I'd advise against wasting your money.

I bought this book expecting that there would be a lot of web application samples as well as collaborative samples. However, most of the book is written in VB! I couldn't even find a complete sample application. If you want to learn how to build collaborative web applications, I'd recommend another book that either has web or collaborative technologies in it with SAMPLES!

I agree with Ms. Peters. The book gives little code for the web, does not address issues that come up with IIS. 95% of the code is in VB, and when transported to ASP does not work. In many cases the code itself does not work. If anyone knows of an up-to-date book that is actually useful please let me know.

On a good note... the book is rounded. If you can debug it, it is useful.

This book is a complete reference and text book for writing applications for Exchange 2000. It has details for everything you might want to do to program Exchange 2000. It is full of exmaples that cover all the items covered in the book.

Mindy's extensive use of code samples and detailed review of all programatic aspects of Exchange 2000 offered me a much richer understanding of this dauntingly huge knowledge management platform.