Sams Teach Yourself Visual C++ 6 in 21 Days [Paperback]

Davis Chapman (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0672312409 | ISBN-13: 978-0672312403 | Publication Date: August 14, 1998 | Edition: 1

Learn Visual C++ through the Teach Yourself series, with sections on: Q&A, Do's and Don'ts, Workshop, Shaded syntax boxes, Type/Output/Analysis icons. Week One starts you with Visual C++. After installing and maneuvering through the components of the software, you'll examine a preliminary program to get the feel for C++ and Visual C++. You'll learn: C++ basics; hierarchies; members, functions, and objects; inheritance; MFC; installing Visual C++, the Visual C++ compiler. In Week Two, you'll look at components of Windows applications and how they are invoked with Visual C++. Topics include: keyboard input; mouse usage; data file handling; lists and serialization; toolbars and status bars; graphics; and projects. Week Three examines the more involved aspects of Visual C++ and Windows applications.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

For the majority of C++ programmers, the pace and style of David Chapman's Teach Yourself Visual C++ 6 in 21 Days will make a good deal of sense. The author covers all the essentials of basic Windows and Microsoft Foundation Classes (MFC) development, and then addresses several new features in Visual C++ 6, all while moving quickly enough for the busy, working programmer.

Chapman's first section introduces the basic Visual C++ 6 tools, like the AppWizard and ClassWizard, and discusses the essentials of building dialog-based applications using basic Windows controls such as static text, edit, button, and list box controls. Further chapters cover mouse and keyboard basics, timers, menus, and fonts. In short, the first week provides a traditional introduction to Windows and MFC programming without the frills.

The second set of tutorials delves into Graphical Device Interface (GDI) graphics programming, always a challenging topic for new MFC programmers. Then the author moves to using ActiveX controls inside your applications (a real strength of Visual C++, enhanced in the new release). The basics of toolbars, saving and restoring files to MFC applications, and an introduction to Open Database Connectivity (ODBC) programming round out this set of chapters.

The last set of exercises will give the MFC developer some new expertise. First, the author looks at the potential of ActiveX Data Objects (ADOs) for database development and how to build reusable libraries in both static and dynamic targets. Advanced material introduces the basics of networking and the TCP/IP protocol and discusses MFC support for working with the Web.

For readers with a little more time, handy appendices discuss additional topics such as printing, the MFC container and helper classes, and the basics of exception handling and debugging. Clearly, the constraints of the 21-day format have not prevented this author from successfully covering many essential topics in today's MFC programming with a good level of detail. --Richard Dragan

From the Back Cover

Learn Visual C++ through the Teach Yourself series, with sections on: Q&A, Do's and Don'ts, Workshop, Shaded syntax boxes, Type/Output/Analysis icons. Week One starts you with Visual C++. After installing and maneuvering through the components of the software, you'll examine a preliminary program to get the feel for C++ and Visual C++. You'll learn: C++ basics; hierarchies; members, functions, and objects; inheritance; MFC; installing Visual C++, the Visual C++ compiler. In Week Two, you'll look at components of Windows applications and how they are invoked with Visual C++. Topics include: keyboard input; mouse usage; data file handling; lists and serialization; toolbars and status bars; graphics; and projects. Week Three examines the more involved aspects of Visual C++ and Windows applications.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 800 pages
• Publisher: Sams; 1 edition (August 14, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0672312409
• ISBN-13: 978-0672312403
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 7.3 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (85 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #773,783 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #100 in Books > Computers & Technology > Programming > C > Tutorials

More About the Author

Jeff Heaton is an author, consultant, artificial intelligence (AI) researcher and former college instructor. Heaton has penned more than a dozen books on topics including AI, virtual worlds, spiders and bots. Heaton leads the Encog project, an open source initiative to provide an advanced neural network and bot framework for Java and C#. A Sun Certified Java Programmer and a Senior Member of the IEEE, he holds a Masters Degree in Information Management from Washington University in St. Louis. Heaton lives in St. Louis, Missouri.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Somewhat useful, May 25, 2000

By 

Lawrence A Neer (San Diego) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Sams Teach Yourself Visual C++ 6 in 21 Days, Complete Compiler Edition (Paperback)

I purshased this book to learn the "Visual" aspect of Visual C++. In that regard it is on target. Don't get it to teach you C++ because it is not designed to do so and there are lots of good books for learning C++ itself. I like the fact that it stays on the Visual part -- I have seen many "Visual" C++ books that throw in 1-2 chapters on the visual portion as an obvious afterthoughs.

The flaws in this book render it half-useless, however. (1) Many of the examples in the text are incorrect and won't compile. (2) There are too many chapters where one rewrites the same drawing program. Since the first chapter drawing program won't compile, and all of the other ones say to do the same things as in that chapter to start with, this renders at least 3 chapters useless. (3) I would prefer more useful examples than another variant of "scribble" (especially since it doesn't work anyway). (4) I downloaded the example chapter code from their website. The chapter codes I tried work, but obviously aren't based on a person working through the actual chapters, since the code has many differences from what you get from the compiler. I expect that they used code from past text revisions, possibly based on earlier versions of Visual C++. (5) It would be helpful if they supplied (either in a CD or at their website) actual code derived from various points in each chapter (e.g., "open file for Chapter 10 version 3 to see the code for the partially completed project on page 210"). (6) It would be good to have MANY more compilable points in the chapters. As it stands, one has to make scores to hundreds of changes between times where it allows compilation. This makes it very difficult for a beginner (i.e., a person who would buy a training text) to get exactly right. (7) The exercise portions of each chapter should be somehow marked, not buried in the text of paragraphs -- this would allow users to work through examples more quickly and not miss some important step.

Overall, good fundamentals but badly flawed execution. Quite disappointing compared with the rest of the series.

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Book Has Specific Purpose, June 18, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Sams Teach Yourself Visual C++ 6 in 21 Days, Complete Compiler Edition (Paperback)

This book does not teach C++ directly, nor does it really get under the hood in MFC. I have a large ammount of experience with C++, and have read some books on MFC as well; with this background, this book served me rather well as a handbook on how to perform routine stuff. Those who are uncomplimentary of this book seem fall into one of two catagories: Those who don't know C++ or MFC and expect one book to quickly teach them both (not possible), and those who understand C++ but want an in depth book on MFC. If you don't understand C++, this book will frustrate you to no end; read a C++ language book first. If you are interested in MFC, then buy a book on MFC. If you already know C++ and are familiar with MFC from a "big picture" perspective, but you want to learn how to use the VC environment and to apply some MFC and such, then this book is not so bad. Errors in the example code prevent this book from getting five stars. All in all, it's a good book, but with a fairly narrow purpose.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Poorly Edited Book, December 14, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Sams Teach Yourself Visual C++ 6 in 21 Days, Professional Reference Edition (Hardcover)

I am an advanced Java and C++ programmer and found this book to be a poorly edited text wrought with errors and missing code. I don't think that anyone short of having advanced C++ skills will get any amount of satisfaction from using this book. There is no updated code referenced on any of the publisher's Internet web pages. In fact there is no support from either the publisher or the authors of any sort. Email messages sent to both are still not answered. Not only would I not recommend this book, I feel the publisher should issue a public apology for allowing such a poor example of work to be sold to the public.