Customer Reviews

Sams Teach Yourself Visual C++ 5 in 21 Days, Fourth Edition

5 star:		(18)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(8)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

Yes, this book may be somewhat repetitive, yes, it may not go over some of the newer technologies in great detail, but what do you expect from a book meant for total beginners? I found this book very easy to understand. It brings you from a know-nothing wannabe-programmer to being somewhat knowledgable in the realm of programming. It covers the basics, I/O, buttons, menus, ActiveX controls, and so forth. The book may be repetitive, but it gets everything in your head. Also, the excercises at the end of each chapter are great, and are an excellent tool to help enforce what you just learned. I would recommend this for anyone who wants to learn Visual C++.

This book gets two stars only because of the appendix, which was a decent C++ tutorial. However, for learning Windows programming, this book is awful. It uses MFC (Microsoft Foundation Classes), which is a terrible place to start. Even Microsoft won't use this technology.

I recommend 'Windows NT 4 Programming from the Ground Up', by Herb Schildt. It uses the Windows API functions, which is a must learn for any Windows programmer. Also, I recommend exploring other books for C++ tutorial. Jesse Liberty's 'Learn C++ in 21 days' book is a decent book if you are just getting started. This book should be called 'Learn MFC programming in 21 days', as the current title is quite misleading.

This book does a great job of getting a novice C++ programmer to the point of writing useful windows programs. While it cleary lacks some depth in explaining C++ concepts, C++ is not what it intends to teach. It's a Visual C++ guide. If you want to quickly have knowledge in making basic windows applications, and have some C++ background this is a wonderful resource.

If you need to learn C++, then get a book on C++. If you need to Learn MFC, then Herbert Schildt's "MFC From The Ground UP" is an excellent book. This "Teach Yourself Visual C++ 5 in 21 Days" book is very good in showing you the mechanics of using the Application and Class Wizards in the Visual C++ compiler from Microsoft. This book is an excellent companion to Herbert Schildt's "MFC From The Ground Up". Learning MFC is the way to go, do not waste time with the old way of programming windows (SDK using Windows API)

When I first read this book, I nearly fell asleep. How can it be so boring? Everyday chapter is just a long description for pushing the button in the Wizard. And it was repeated and repeated again. Definitely, you can learn how to use the Wizard instead of how to program with Visual C++. It never tells you why you have to do it. Very little explaination on COM, Database, web program, etc. I regret to waste my time on this book.

I'm an experienced DOS C programmer, and I needed a book to help jumpstart me into Win 95 programming. I skimmed through the contents and thought, "Great, it contains what I want to learn!".

Until I started reading the damned thing, that is. It's not so much the subject matter, as it is the lack of depth which is the problem. The author spends far too much explaining the same stupid steps ("Click here, and here, and here, etc") over and over without going into any relevant detail. The examples are painfully primitive, and trying to create apps with any sort of functionality resulted in lots of fishing in the MSDN Library.

If you're an absolute beginner to Visual C++, then this book will give you a good feel for the basics. Unfortunately, that's about all it contains.

I thought this book was useful because I was the one targeted. By the way you can use this with Visual C++ 6.0 The target audience are NOT C++ beginners. The target audience is actually people who need to be walked through the various features of the MSVC product interface. For this particular target audience, the book excels (read the other reviews with this in mind). The author repeats the project startup steps (initially this irked me) for the people who need to do a specific task, like writing a DLL (You know you're the one). MSVC 6 gives you extra wizards for DLLs BTW. I would recommend this book to people who already have C++ experience, and need to learn yet another NEW interface from Microsoft. If you ARE a C++ beginner, the end of the book (Appendices) has information which explains to you what variables are, scope, classes, structures, etc... The information is limited, but if you are a real programmer you should be able to muddle through. You should step through every example and after it works, continue to tweak it so you can see how the tweaking affects the program.

When I first saw this book i thought it was great. The begin was easy : Many pictures, all the required steps etc... But when I finished it, I reallised that the best thing I could do was making nice looking windows. I didn 't learn to program in C just draw windows, show MessageBoxes, meaby make a sound (BEEP). The book could be one third in size and give the same amount of info.

This book is great at teaching you the INTERFACE of Visual C++, but explains little about the functions used in the example programs. I have an advantage in that I am a programmer by profession and am familiar with many of the concepts shown (but not explained) in the book. What I was able to reason on my own because of lack of information, someone with less experience might not.

bought this book and regretted. it's not teaching anything useful for you to write an useful program yourselves. nothing 'bout MFC,ATL, API, nothing. if i taught myself anything it would be not to buy any book titled 'Teach yourself ______'.