Customer Reviews

Windows CE 3.0: Application Programming (Prentice Hall Series on Microsoft Technologies)

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

 

 

Good book if you want to know about Win CE API Programming. Nothing about eVC++, eVB and UI which makes its content very poor. It should have been titled WIN CE API...

I bought the book with the intention of trying out the example code on my Jornada 720 (running Handheld PC 2000 which is CE3.0).

Even though the book title explicitly calls out "CE 3.0", the example code (examples.vcw) does NOT even compile for Handheld PC 2000 (I have the HPC 2000 SDK Released Version Jan/23,2001 installed).

I emailed the Embedded VC++ compiler error messages to the authors and heard nothing back.

This book is a great Windows CE reference. The material and examples are comprehensive, clear and concise. But do not use it as an introduction to eVC++ because there is virtually nothing on the user interface or the basics of MFC. If you are a C++ or VC++ programmer, and you want to become functional in a hurry with Windows CE 3.0, I strongly recommend it. Also, unlike a previous reviewer, I found the author to be very responsive to questions.

This book is all about backend services, on the back of the book itself it says that it goes BEYOND UI programming. It mentions how to use MFC to call the required APIs but it is NOT a WinCE MFC book.

Definetly recommend this book to anyone who has ALREADY known about MFC and Win32 programming, and want to get up to speed with what services are available for WinCE

This is a really excellent book on Window CE programming reference. Especially this book includes a lot of new feature of Window CE 3.0. It's a great help for my work related to GPS, TAPI, RAS, Socket and Serial Communications. Mr. Nick Grattan and Marshall Brain are really smart person and great authors.

I've found this book to be very handy, it covers many different sections of WinCE programming and is a great reference book. Its not a book your going to read from cover to cover, but its the one your going to grab when your sitting in front of your latest WinCE app and something isn't compiling correctly. As for WinCE 3.0 support, I haven't had a single problem getting any of the demo code to work on ANY WinCE 3.0 device.

Surely a good book, the problem is that the cover page gives the wrong impression. In five points the content is declared, but two of them are summing up to one and a half pages! There is nothing about window handling or any other type of user interface, almost nothing about MFC, and nothing about using Embedded Visual C++! The book is only about systems programming in the Windows CE API, and that was not what could be expected.

Note that he doesn't claim to cover GUI programming. It is great in its explanation of thread synchronization, accessing drivers, and differences between CE and desktop Windows.

I ordered this book to help me migrate from development on Linux to development on Windows CE. I found errors in the first 10 minutes of reading! (Page 249, 1/986 and 1/147 are both wrong. Refer to the NMEA 0183 spec for details.)

Between the errors, the lack of coverage of PPC2002, and the blatent omission of anything interface specific, my recommendation is to wait for another book to get published. Especially if you want something that covers GUI - this does not.

Unfortunately, I must also say that this is the best book out there, at least that I've been able to find (WinCE/eVC++). So I guess that makes it a winner! ....but only by default.

I'm currently using the book to develop. It's a good book with plenty of examples to start you off. No white space and the examples are short and to the point. The only real grip I have is that it tends to occationally use the wrong word. For example, in Ch5 on Processs and Threads it say:

"An application can create additional threads..."

Call me picky, but technically the word should be 'process' not 'application'. An application (per the book) is the .exe in the object stores. Only when the application runs is a process create...