Customer Reviews

Visual C++ 6 from the Ground Up

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

 

 

This book reinforces the old adage that you can't judge a book by its cover. Emblazoned across the top of the cover is the phrase, "Open This Book as a Novice and Finish It as a Pro." If only that were true.

This book focuses on the new features available under Visual C++ 6.0, and provides a great resource for learning those topics. Unfortunately, it seems to be schizophrenic in the topics it tackles. This is not an introductory book designed to teach you Visual C++ "from the Ground Up" as the title implies.

The first part of the book is a verbose introduction to Visual C++. The second part focuses on ADO and ODBC database topics. The next one-third of the book focuses on Internet related topics, from designing a web page, through basic JavaScript, and finishes on IIS (Microsoft Internet Information Server). Later, Mueller delves into security issues. Next, Mueller explores creating help files, and HTML help files (this part of the book is worth its weight in gold). The last part focuses on packaging your application for distribution.

While I can't deny that this book contains a lot of great information (once you get past the verbose introduction), it doesn't do what it sets out be-- an all-inclusive tutorial on Visual C++.

I would go so far as to say that the title is intentionally misleading. Also, note that there is relatively little source code presented within the text.

What it does not cover: basic controls, dialogs, windows messaging, DDX, owner drawn controls, document-view framework, or any basic MFC classes.

I found this book to be very lacking and costing me more time than its worth. 'From the Ground UP' should mean just that. This is not from the ground up. I find that I am constantly having to do my own research in the Microsoft help in order to get the examples to work...way too many gaps in the text and bugs in the examples. I'm an experienced C++ programmer (but not Visual) and struggled with this book's lack of detail.

This book taught me to read Amazon.com reviews before buying. I enjoyed Visual Basic From the Ground Up so much, that I quickly bought Visual C++ From the Ground Up when I found the title. Bad move... Nothing about this book was from the ground up. It was a waste of money and a waste of time. Save your money and your time, if you need a good basic C++ book try Ivor Horton's "Beginning Visual C++" And, read Amazon.com book reviews before you buy!

I opened this book with no experience in Visual C++ and was instantly disappointed--so much so that I wrote the author an email about it. He provided me with a nice long response and helped out in every way possible. The title for this book is incorrect--it should be Visual C++ 6 for Intermediate Developers. The "from the Ground Up" portion of the title made me think this book is for novices. So, after I got some background information, I tried the book again.

The theory, online sites, tips, and notes in this book are rock solid. I found that I learned many new tricks by reading it and that I was able to develop more complex applications faster and with less effort after reading it. This is the reason for my book rating (along with the author's participation in email). So, if you're going to buy this book, buy it because you want to write better applications, faster.

The example code in this book is flawed. Even the author admits that there are problems with it. If you want to see what the code should look like, check out the author's Web site. I found several FAQs for this book and the author promises to provide more. To the author's credit, he will accept input from readers and even make this input available to the public in general. I just wish he had done a better job with the code in the first place.

If you are looking for something practical with Visual C++ 6, it is the one of candidates. The structure of this book is well defined. You will experience a lot of new features of Visual C++ 6 though the straightforward sample applications. This book covers some topics, like ADO data binding, which you properly just see a brief instruction on many C++ books, in detail. It also explores Internet development hands-on experience and tools. In the last chapter it talks about how to package your application in most developers' interest. The main drawback for this book is that the code is not well-tested. For instance, the code on P210 will encounter runtime error. Another problem is that it has little explanation for window programming architecture and you don't expect you can ask "whys" in therory.

The title of this book is definitely incorrect. If you're looking for something to hold your hand and lead you through each step of the application creation process, look for a Dummies book. This book has it all: ActiveX, the Internet, and database management, along with a healthy dose of basic applications. There were even sections that showed how to package my applications. I did find a few minor glitches in the code, but the author provided help with the problems the same day that I wrote him. I was also a little disappointed that this book is a bit out of date with the release of Windows 2000. Hopefully the author will take time to update it.

This book contains much useful information. There are a few errors in the example code which require some effort to work through. I haven't seen a book yet that doesn't have errors. The author has provided assistance in these cases from his web page and through email. And, is also correcting these problems for the next edition of the book. Aside from that, most of the book is error free and provides in depth explanation of up to date, useful programming technique. It also contains useful web programming examples. I recommend this book.

This book is good for reader to learn Database, Html, Software Package with hands-on instruction plus information guidance. But you hardly get instruction for other purposes, e.g. graphics etc. The source code privided need improvement.

The 2nd sample in this book, Calendar Dialog Application, completely doesn't work. When I compiled it, I got seven errors. So I give up to read this book.

Why I gave this book a mark +----

+ The book touchs two hot topics in current development - database(with ADO) and internet

-The book hardly touchs anything else

-The slogan :"Open this book as a Novice and finish as a Pro" is false from both sides. Even author admits in introduction, that you should have C++ experience.As for part two look at first and next minuses.

-The real content of a book is small, i.e. author explains how to create DSN on 9(!) pages and include some completely unnecessary stuff like Web design and JavaScript on 80+ pages

-Author shows his lazyness and complete disrespect to readers because the zipped(!) source code on web totally is ~44 Mb :( Can you imagine to download it with 28.8 Modem? And that is only because the author simply zipped all files including huge VC debug stuff that is absolutely unnecessary - any can compile it with VC at home.

So the proper name of the book should be - "Introduction to database and internet development with VC6 for VC developers".In this case this book may be useful to start.