Customer Reviews

Visual C++(r).NET: The Complete Reference

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

I have spent the last year and ½ working with .NET particularly in the area of Managed C++, C++ and COM Interop, and bought this book to see if there was anything they add to add. This book is touted as a "complete reference." So it is with great shock that in 1073 pages, they fail to even mention Managed Extensions for C++, which arguably is the single most important part of Visual C++.NET. Indeed, the index does not even contain the word "managed!" A person picking up this book may be expected to see a discussion of the profound changes that .NET brings to the Windows programmer. Not even mentioned. Strangely enough, we get a chapter, Chapter 24: C# A Windows Application" that has a chapter on C# without even mentioning .NET!
There is no overview chapter on .NET, the CLR and the CTS, and how they enable cross-language inter-operation. There is no chapter on the new keywords that Managed Extensions introduces like __gc, __valuetype, __pin and so forth. There is no chapter(s) on using .NET's BCL from C++, there is no chapter on how to migrate code to the managed environment, no chapter on mixing managed and unmanaged code, and no COM Interop chapter to name a few.
That's not even the worst part. I got up to page 13 and had to stop because of the sheer number of technical errors. On page 6, we have this interesting tidbit "For these developers, SQL debugging and MTS are integrated into the development environment making development of distributed-transaction-oriented applications faster and easier (SQL Server and MTS come with the Enterprise Edition of Visual C++)." Whoops! Forgot to cut this part out from the last edition and change it! This is a description of Visual C++ Enterprise 6.0! MTS has long since been replaced by COM+ and in some regards .NET. Neither SQL Server nor MTS comes with the Enterprise Edition. It just gets worse from there.
There's no excuse for books like this (and these two authors have been particularly bad at this in other .NET books like this). This kind of cut and pasting from previous editions and missing the boat on most of the meat of this new release does readers a real dis-service.

If you know C++ already and only need a book to tell you something about visual c++ .NET, DO NOT buy this book. It really starts to teach you about Visual C++ .NET from page 664. More than 50% of the book is on C++. P.S. it's also not a good book for learning pure C++.

This is a very rich book on C++ and will provide a wealth of knowledge for those unfamiliar with the language. As for experienced C++ developers... stay FAR away. This book should have been titled : ".Net not included". By saying C++ .Net reference... they mean that they ran the examples on visual studio .Net(version 7). Do yourself a favor. If you want to know how to use C++ with managed extensions, don't get this book. The title is misleading. As for newbies... this book will be a good reference for the C++ (non .Net) language.

The book spends the first 19 chapters on C++, which seems to me is not something I expect from a reference book (Herbert Schildt's C++: The Complete Reference suffices). When you get to Chapter 21, you realize that you're writing not using managed code, instead, you find yourself writing Win32 API's! The book should have focused on manage code, that's what Visual C++.NET is. If I wanted to read a book that focused on Win32 API's, I'd use another book. The book hardly focuses on managed code, which is the foundation of .NET (regardless of the language). I'm not at all surprised why I bought the book for $4.99 at my local bookstore.

This is for the Visual C++.NET book by murry and pappas. I am a colleg student
in Nashville. This is the second C++ course I have taken at the college. I was
having trouble understanding my textbook and my professor told me to buy this
murry and pappas book. This was last semester. I think because of this book
I got a B in my first C++ course. You see, their book has a lot of examples
that help you get started with how to write programs.

I am using it again this semester. We are doing linked-lists. Check it out -
this book is great.

I have been using books by these authors and Herb Schildt for over 10 years. Not only do I like Osborne books but I like these authors.

First, Osborne books are easy to read (not that small type - you know what I mean). Murry and Pappas also give a lot of short programming examples which are very helpful for new programmers.

I liked the C++ coverage in the book but also liked the material on STL, MFC, etc. I'm about 1/2 through the book and found that the code works correctly.

A good book if you want everyhting from soup to nuts in one book. But don't plan on carrying it too far - it is over 1000 pages.

My father gave me a book by Murray and Pappas about 10 years ago. It was on assembly language programming. He said it saved his job at General Electric. I used it in college and found it to be very helpful.

I guess these are the same guys. Anyway, my company wants to convert some old program code to C++. I had a course in C, but didn't know that much about C++ classes and objects. Well, this book will get you up and running pretty fast. They do a really good job on classes, objects and all of the other object oriented stuff. The best part is how they integrate it with Windows code. I was interested to MFC but most of the books I read assume you know C++ when you want to do MFC. Not this book! They picked me up by my bootstrapes and got me into MFC quickly.

Some of the topics, like COM+, are a little advanced for me at this time, but I guess that is what a complete reference is all about. Thanks guys! (and if my father were still alive I think he would thank you too).

I'm really just getting started with the Windows portion of this book. I found the coverage of C++ pretty good - well, maybe excellant would be better.

A 1000 pages - man I don't know how those other guys got through the book this fast.

One thing I know - the programs I tried worked the first time. Something that most books can't say about their code.

When was the last time you have called a DOS interrupt in a Win32 program?!!
This book focuses on teaching you C++, Win32 API and in the appendix lists DOS and BIOS interrupts. This is not what one would expect in a .NET reference.

Let me start with the negative first - The cover says "Create Web Services" but I didn't see that material in the book when I looked at it in the book store. What happened guys - did the book get a little too thick? I think they must have decided to cut this material before the book got too heavy to carry around. Guys - you need to take that info off the front cover!

Okay, with that said and done, the authors have stayed true to earlier editions. I'm glad to see they took out all of their old C code programs. The book is exclusively C++ except for a couple of chapters that introduce C# (we'll forgive them).

For people just getting started with C++ like high school and college students - you couldn't buy a better book. The core material on C++ is top notch. When I say core material I'm talking about Chapters 1 to 19. Now if you are a little advanced and want to get into Windows programming, read on. Chapters 20 to 23 do a great jon of bringing the material from the beginning chapters into the Windows programs.

The remainder of the books deals with topics that are beyond my interest. However, they are topics that many will find interesting. It just seems to me that if you want that kind of high powered high level information you should be buying a book devoted just to those high level topics.

Anyway, I like the book and even though I already own the earlier version, I bought this version JUST for the chapters on the Standard Template Libraries (STL).