Customer Reviews

Visual C++ 5 Bible (Bible (Wiley))

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I got this book for the guys in our programming lab. Out of the entire book, only a few chapters turned out to be of any use. The database chapter, the internet programming chapter, and the imaging chapter gave information on the level that professional programmers need. Other chapters in the book seemed to be targeted at beginners, incongruous with the three good chapters. And still, other chapters were targeted at teaching the C++ language--curious for a book on Visual C++.

This book is presented in a very linear fashion: you are expected to start at page 1 or run into difficulties. I myself was a complete beginner in the field of MFC etc. and the chapters on OOP in C++ (which I knew precious little about) were valuable. It is a good book for occasional bursts, but it is very compacted, explaining some points in ridiculous detail and not affording enough to others. I would recommend it only as a book to choose if you have read up about Visual C++ or C++ and find yourself in need of a recap.

This book has a number of strong points that make it worth the purchase. Many Visual C++ books pander to the beginner level programmer. This book has some intro level material, but in a number of areas offers some meaty subjects for beginners and veterans alike. The memory management chapter is excellent. The Internet programming chapter cleared up many areas for me and I was able to implement a number of applications based on the code. The database chapter was very enlightening.

If these areas interest you, get this book.

The tone of this book swings wildly. In on chapter the presentation is conversational, while in another it's academic. The material is presented in as inconsistent a manner as well. It's hard to really use this book.

This book gives you a good intro to a lot of Visual C++ topics. The section about the C++ language was helpful for me since I've been out of C++ for several years. There's a section that gives some background on MFC. While this isn't especially practical, it helps put everything in context.

The chapter on creating MFC windows was my biggest complaint. It was weak and I don't think I can use much of the information in my work.

The database chapter was the best part of this book. Many other books either skip database access, or gloss over it in a way that's totally useless. This book offers a database chapter that's actually useful out of the box. The rest of the book is pretty much standard MFC programming with an occasional section that's useful.

This book spends way too much time talking about the C++ language. I don't need to read and learn about C++, I need to read and learn about Visual C++, MFC, and Windows programming.

Once the chapters get into the heart of Windows programming, the material is better suited for what I need.

If you're looking for straight MFC and Windows, you may want to skip this one.

This book has a lot of good information. The only problem is that it's going to be hard to apply a lot of the good information to you programming tasks. For instance, dialogs are discussed, but completely out of the context of the ClassWizard and the resource editor. It's hard to take the abstract discussion of dialogs that's included and use it in your work.

Some information is good. The database and internet programming chapters offer topics that aren't covered in many other books.

As I quickly go to the ActiveX control chapter, there is an easy to catch "cut & paste" piece of work I found at the beginning, in which the contents are exactly identical with Ivon Horton's Beginning Visual C++ 5(ISBN 1861000081). ActiveX chapter...; they only differed in layout. This stops me going forward to the rest as I've owned Ivor's book.

This book is fine for Intermedaite Level Programmer who would like to write software in home. Inside the book you can find about the history of MFC as the first thing to read which I have never seen in any other programming books. This book can be used for How To Do ?