Professional Visual C++ 5 Activex/Com Control Programming (Paperback)

~ (Author), Panos Economopoulos (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Two of the most powerful, albeit complex, technologies available to the Visual C++ programmer are ActiveX and COM. This book is a tool for the professional developer and gets down and dirty on topics such as interoperability, remote execution, and ActiveX control development.

This work moves at a fast pace, illustrating techniques and discussing underlying technology. It dives into the details of the Component Object Model (COM) and how to write an ActiveX control from scratch or with the ActiveX Template Library. Next, the book lays out the construction of an ActiveX calendar control and tells how to make it work with legacy architectures using DCOM. The text then goes into a detailed discussion of DCOM, security, and ActiveX integration with intranets. Appendix A presents a nice architectural discussion of real-world business use of the Internet and closed intranets.

While this book focuses on a very specific type of C++ programming, it covers some of the least understood yet very enabling technologies in depth. If you consider yourself a strong C++ programmer and want to leverage ActiveX and COM to create sophisticated enterprise applications, you'll find this reference very useful.

Product Description

A book written by programmers, Professional Visual C++ ActiveX Intranet Programming is a guide to creating custom ActiveX components to allow an Intranet to publish non-standard data in a customized format, using controls that allow presentation of and interaction with that data in a completely custom way. The book is for experienced Visual C++ programmers who have used MFC in some depth.

Product Details

• Paperback: 485 pages
• Publisher: Apress (April 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1861000375
• ISBN-13: 978-1861000378
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 7.2 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #2,049,130 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

  Popular in these categories: (What's this?)

  #20 in	Books > Computers & Internet > Web Development > Programming > ActiveX
  #47 in	Books > Computers & Internet > Networking > Networks, Protocols & APIs > COM & DCOM
  #56 in	Books > Computers & Internet > Programming > APIs & Operating Environments > COM, DCOM & ATL

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Don't waste your money, June 27, 1999

By A Customer

I'm a very experienced developer who's been programming since most of you were still in public school. Technical books are generally not a challenge for me but this one certainly was. Not because of the complexity of the subject, but because of the overwhelming amount of irrelevant information. Showing countless screen shots of behind-the-scenes code generated by the various Microsoft tools used to create COM objects is a collosal waste of time. 99% of the readers will never need to know any of this nor should they. Their explanation of this code, besides a waste of time, is also limp and extremely incomplete. Countless details are missing even when it's highly relevant (for example, the basic syntax of IDL files is nowhere to be found). Coupled will countless snapshots of COM API calls which look as if they've been copied straight from the compiler documentation, and huge bloated examples that spend more time dealing with non-COM related issues than anything practical (and which can take weeks to wade through), this book is a prime example of an experienced developer but a neophyte author (whose programming skills, based on some of the examples I saw, also need sharpening regardless of his knowledge of COM).

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Too many typos. Plot is lost by Chapter 4., February 10, 1999

By A Customer

The book starts well. The scene is set nicely in the first two chapters and the authors promise you the earth. Then they seem to loose the plot. Not only do they get bogged down with too much detail and not enough overview, but lots of little mistakes seem to creep into the text. It's a pity but it seems that the book was never passed by an editor. For instance, in Chapter 4 on page 136 the authors promise to 'have a lot more to say about threading models at the end of this chapter (see the section named COM Threading Models)'. The only problem being there simply isn't a section named COM Threading Models in this or any other chapter! Furthermore, one might pardon one broken promise in one page but to do it twice is unforgiveable! Later in the same page, the authors refer to the same imaginary section!!

But such mistakes and omissions are not confined to this chapter. The authors simply leave the reader bewildered and disappointed. I don't recommend it.

7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Create engineering solutions - or snow your friends?, October 5, 1999

By A Customer

If you seek a book that provides real solutions to programming challenges, skip this one. If you're looking for ways to impress your friends by baffling them with useless detail and confusing presentation, by all means buy it! Basically, you get the generic plagiarization of COM overview, and then a rambling, incoherant dissertation on the benefits of micro-analyzing binary code dumps while investigating everything of irrelevance. These guys are the type that want to rewrite the world's entire software base in assembler.

There are some good treatments here, but I'm interested in applying knowledge to solutions, not bit-busting everything down to the Nth degree to prove I'm an MSEE. Soaking up 465 pages of digression to wind up with one control is not my idea of producing results. HTML references, historical treatises of intranets, treatment of security issues, sales pitches, obtuse examples ineffectually explained, and missing imperatives conspire to make this book one of the great paperweights of its time.