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Essential COM (DevelopMentor Series)
 
 
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Essential COM (DevelopMentor Series) (Paperback)

by Don Box (Author)
4.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (91 customer reviews)
List Price: $54.99
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Frequently Bought Together

Customers buy this book with Effective COM: 50 Ways to Improve Your COM and MTS-based Applications (Addison-Wesley Object Technology Series) by Don Box

Essential COM (DevelopMentor Series) + Effective COM: 50 Ways to Improve Your COM and MTS-based Applications (Addison-Wesley Object Technology Series)
Price For Both: $68.74

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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review
The Component Object Model (COM) is deep and extremely difficult, making it impossible to grasp the ideas behind this specification quickly or easily. Don Box, the author of Essential COM concedes that it took him six months of reading documentation, writing programs, and experiencing general puzzlement before he had his personal COM epiphany. Nonetheless, if you're a C++ programmer and you want your skills to continue to be relevant in a PC market dominated by Windows 95 and Windows NT, you need to get going down the path toward your own COM enlightenment. COM is the tool of choice for creating distributed and concurrent systems for modern Microsoft operating systems. If there's a book that will help you get a handle on the COM phenomenon, Essential COM is it.

Endorsed by object-orientation guru Grady Booch and Microsoft COM expert Charlie Kindel, Box's book takes the reader from an elucidating discussion of why a demand exists for COM and how it fits into the progression of C++ technology to a cool exhibition of some COM programs he's written. Along the way, Box covers the four corners of COM interfaces, classes, apartments, and security--all explained in developer's detail. He also gives attention to access control, marshaling, and Distributed COM (DCOM). Essential COM isn't an application programming interface (API) reference; it is an exploration of the Tao of COM. As the author says in his preface, you will figure out the how of COM programming quickly, as soon as you grasp the why.

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Starting from the progressive definition of an informal set of requirements for modular software architectures, the first chapter of Essential COM highlights how, by itself, the C++ language is not capable of satisfying many of them, even when associated with DLLs. Several possible design alternatives are then evaluated, and the final decision leads to the rough engineering of COM. This is perhaps the most vaporware-free introduction to the subject I have ever read because it explains through facts and not conjecture how and why the C++ object model maps well to COM... As the book proceeds, more and more room is given to complex technical issues and useful (while not trivial) COM programming idioms, such as tear-off interfaces for saving memory as the number of interfaces climbs significantly but not all of them happen to be constantly in use. In all cases the solutions make use of only the raw COM API and interfaces at the C++ level. Neither the theory, nor any of the numerous code snippets sprinkled throughout in the book, mention high-level frameworks such as ATL or MFC. The dissertation on multithreading issues and marshaling are very detailed and betray the vast experience of the author in the implementation of nontrivial COM systems. --Davide Marcato, Dr. Dobb's Journal -- Dr. Dobb's Journal

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Product Details
Look Inside This Book
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Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Cover
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33 books cite this book:
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66% buy the item featured on this page:
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Customer Reviews

91 Reviews
5 star:
 (54)
4 star:
 (16)
3 star:
 (12)
2 star:
 (8)
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 (1)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
4.3 out of 5 stars (91 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
75 of 80 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars I was disappointed :-(, August 8, 2000
The book is a collection of technical notes and not a learning book. The author tries to show every little detail but forget about explaining the global idea behind it. There is no connection between parts and there is no writing technique that leads you into understanding. I got the feeling the author was more busy of showing how much he knows and less about trying to explain things to the reader. This book is "nice to have" but only after someone else show you the meaning of COM.
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44 of 46 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars The author is a COM master, but at times that is a problem., September 30, 1998
By One Man's View (Lawrenceville, GA USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)      
Obviously, Don Box is a COM and C++ master, which is where the problem lies. Admittedly, he does cover many aspects of COM quite extensively. The first chapter is the best background material on COM that I have read. But thereafter, Box changes his approach. He then seems to lapse into gratuitous, uncontollable programming razzle-dazzle when covering COM topics. His multi-page macros are just plain confusing and distracting. [Who is his intended audience: COM neophytes or his COM cronies?] His explanations concerning his use of the subtleties of C++ are entirely too feeble. While COM is at heart a subtle C++ application, surely programming virtuosity can be de-emphasized when explaining COM basics. His examples have questionable utility. However, again, his book does fill in some of the gaps of COM that other books gloss over. But I'm still waiting for that five-star book on COM.
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35 of 37 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars this book really is overcredited, May 24, 1999
By A Customer
Yes, the book gets its job done. Once you are done reading this book, you will know COM quite well. However, this really is not for beginners. Unless you have a good idea on how COM works, you will be lost. I have read "Inside COM" before reading this book, and I was still somewhat lost(its that confusing). If you know how COM works, this book will lead you to more technical background and help you truly understand how COM works, but, things are not clearly written. The author expects you know COM quite well.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Still valuable
I read this book about ten years ago first time. When I have to deal with a COM problem, I still find it useful.
Published 13 months ago by Cumhur Guzel

3.0 out of 5 stars Not a good book to start COM
If you want to learn COM I dont think this book is a good start. It is a great book and I think every COM developer should read it, however; it is not a step-by-step into. Read more
Published 13 months ago by Berk C. Celebisoy

3.0 out of 5 stars no source code
I read Essential COM almost 10 years ago, and revisited it recently, out of curiosity. It's tough sledding, but if you *must* know this stuff, this is probably it... Read more
Published 24 months ago by James G. Owen

5.0 out of 5 stars A must read book for learning COM
I have learned a lot with this book. I would not qualify the book an introduction book because unless you have some background knowledge and practice, you are going to find the... Read more
Published on June 15, 2007 by Olivier Langlois

5.0 out of 5 stars Buy this book FIRST when you want to learn Microsoft's Common Object Model
All vetran C++ programmers should learn this along side MFC, it assumes a minimal knowledge of COM so it is easy to pick up, and gets you familiar with the common elements of this... Read more
Published on March 20, 2007 by Gabriel T. Sharp

5.0 out of 5 stars [in, unique] IBindCtx *pbc
The basic idea of COM as a binary standard that supports querying for supported interfaces and object lifetime through reference counting could hardly be simpler: five pages, End... Read more
Published on January 11, 2007 by A. Mason

5.0 out of 5 stars good COM book
If you have good understanding of C++ concepts and Windows programming, this is a great book for learning COM technology. Read more
Published on November 8, 2006 by S. Agrawal

2.0 out of 5 stars boring, just read chapter 1 and look for another one.
It takes me 3 years to finish this book, only first chapter is very good;
Man! a real book writer, where do you find all these words to explain very simple idea;
I... Read more
Published on March 20, 2006 by S. Zhang

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent book on COM!
This is a must have book for anyone doing COM programming. The great Don Box is a brilliant developer and an excellent writer. Read more
Published on February 7, 2006 by Robert A. Balfe

4.0 out of 5 stars Is COM really this complicated?
After reading this book, only two possibilities exist. Either Don Box has made COM more difficult than it needs to be, or it really is this difficult. Read more
Published on January 22, 2006 by raboof

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