Customer Reviews

The Tomes of Delphi 3: Win32 Core Api

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

The examples shown in this book are of little more value than those found in MSDN. They're simplistic, strawman examples that you don't need a book to figure out. Moreover, the coverage of the API is incomplete. The Shell interface, for example, should be covered in depth -- it isn't. Worse yet, the writing is very bad. I've never read such boring, lackluster prose. The authors show no noteworthy ability for making difficult concepts easy to grasp -- a must for the able technical writer. I recommend that you get Delphi Unleashed instead.

I bought this after seeing several newbie recommendations for it. What a waste of money! This is nothing but a dead trees version of the Win32 API help with some banal examples thrown in for good measure. It's an embarrassing hack of a book. If you want to actually *master* the core API, get Delphi Unleashed or Delphi Developer's Guide and study MSDN extensively.

After checking out the book for couple hours in the Book store. I realized why some one would want to create a simple Window by writing extensive API code, which takes about 15 lines, when you can do it in delphi by visually creating it (Chapter 1). I was hoping they would cover Windows Messages as opposed to APIs which Borland takes care of them with their wrappers. I personally I find this book neither helpful nor informative at all.

I'm always embarrassed when I let good reviews of a book pursuade me to buy it, sight unseen, and it proves to be a turkey. Such was the case with this one. I read some good reviews on the Web about it, then clicked a couple of buttons and ordered it online without having really looked at it in a store. What a mistake this turned out to be! This book is a mere reproduction of MSDN and the Inprise/Corel docs. I didn't find the example code helpful or even fresh -- it appears to either be copied from MSDN or directly translated from it. It's a hefty book, but, unfortunately, it's real value to the developer is correspondingly light.

If you take out the info that is only a mouse click away in MSDN, the Borland online help, the Win32 SDK help, etc., you lose 90% of this book. I can't believe anyone would be foolish enough to give this book 5 stars. A much better work is X Pancheco's book, Delphi Developer's Guide from Sams or Delphi Unleashed, by Charlie Calvert.

This is nothing more than a reproduction of the MSDN andBorland help. Some of the examples are copied verbatim from MSDN andtranslated to Pascal. Do not waste your money on this book. It does not deserve shelf space in your library.

When I first saw the book it seemed like a redundant work. But when I was completely blocked in my development that book saved me a lot of time and work. So I would like to apologize for my earlier and very dumb judgment. And not only I bought a copy I also bought and gave several copies to fellow developers. In a word, if you are a serious Delphi programmer you MUST have this book.

This book is a must for any serious Delphi developer. The API has been covered before but not for Delphi and this in-depth. It seems like the authors made a point of making sure this book was correct in every aspect. I am the head of the development department for my company. I plan on making sure that everyone of my Delphi developers has this book. This book will work for any 32bit Delphi application. If you don't have this book then you are not a serious Delphi Developer. I applaud the entire Tomes staff for an excellent job on the book. The only problem with the book is the CD. If you contact Wordware they will send you out a new CD. They also have the missing items from the CD on there webpage. I also suggest checking out John Ayres webpage. It is a great place for Delphi links.

Not for the faint-hearted. This book is aimed toward advanced users. Those with less experience and knowledge of Windows programming will not find the book useful, but those who wish to squeeze out every ounce of energy from a Delphi/Windows application will find this book very valuable. In addition to excellent information, they get a big plus in that all of their example code WORKS. There is no reason to jump to their web page to download the "working" version, and no "sorry, I forgot to include some files on the CD" stuff. If there is, I sure haven't run into it yet. Without the book, you can spend 5 minutes tracking down the correct syntax for callback functions (and then test to ensure it works), or spend 30 seconds looking it up in this book and getting quality documentation. I don't have time to waste; the book is for me.

Which book do I refer to more than any other? Which book helps me solve more problems than any other? Which book serves me better than any newsgroup (most of the time)?

The Tomes of Delphi 3.

I must concur with other reviews I've read. If you are into the Windows API then this book is a must-have. It doesn't cover everything in the API, but more than 90% of what I need to know is in this book. I seriously wouldn't get my job done as quickly without it.

I am eagerly awaiting their new WIN32 Multimedia API book!

In the meantime, get this book!