Editorial 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 Read more

Reviews (84)

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;
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.This book covers all aspects of COM and gives the reader the critical information that is clouded by the Microsoft tools.

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.
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Subjects:  1. C (Programming Language)    2. C++ (Computer program language    3. C++ (Computer program language)    4. Computer Books: Languages    5. Computers    6. Computers - Languages / Programming    7. Object-Oriented Programming    8. Object-oriented programming (C    9. Object-oriented programming (Computer science)    10. Operating Systems - General    11. Programming - Object Oriented Programming    12. Programming Languages - General    13. Computer architecture & logic design    14. Computers / Programming / Object Oriented    15. High level programming languages    16. Microsoft Windows   

Editorial Review

COM (Component Object Model) forms the foundation of OLE and ActiveX as well as Microsoft's vision for componentized, distributed computing. Read more

Reviews (96)

An excellent book on COM
This is much more than a COM book. The book spends a lot of time in the first half talking about the more general concept of interfaces, which is more of a software design topic. Then he shows how to implement those interfaces using C++ abstract classes and gives a very good discussion of inheritence, polymorphism, and virtual function tables. Everything is done in pure C++ so you can see what is going on. No wizards or macros to hide the details. The diagrams were very helpful.
Technical, clear and succinct
I have been using COM for a while, then finally decided to dig further into its design paradigm and some implementation details. This book assumes knowledge of C++ and a lot of understanding of polymorphism. If you don't understand polymorphism, then it will be very hard to understand this book - but if you do, you will really enjoy reading it.
Great book uses simple C++ coding style for presenting COM
This is an excellent COM starting book. The author progressively builds knowledge and uses a C++ style that does not require you to memorize by heart the function, macro or template presented in page X or in windows.h. This simple, no distractions approach facilitates focus.
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Subjects:  1. C++ (Computer program language)    2. Computer Books And Software    3. Computers    4. Computers - Languages / Programming    5. Object-Oriented Programming    6. Object-oriented programming (Computer science)    7. Programming - Object Oriented Programming    8. Programming Languages - General    9. Computer Hardware & Operating Systems    10. Networking packages   

Reviews (51)

This book is GREAT!..
Apart from the fact that so many customers gave 5 stars to this book, there's another indicator of its value: it looks like nobody wants to resell it after they are done reading it. I, for one, intend to keep it for reference...
outstanding
I NEVER write reviews; however Mr. Troelsen for this effort has earned it.He has written by far one of the best written tech books on C programming I've ever read, and for COM/ATL this book makes writing interfaces for VB both understandable and accessible.Coverage and background is sufficient, and equally important for those who don't do this every day for a living, the depth in setting up projects in Visual Studio is also there so one unfamiliar with technical setup issues involved in setting up an ATL COM project are enabled to create their own.All I can say is well done, please keep up the good work, very much appreciated.Looking forward to your next releases.
Classic COM and ATL book
Describe low level COM and then ATL internals and interfaces which can let reader easily understand such complex mechanism. Though the book is a little bit old, it can still be served as a good reference. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Active template library    2. COM (Computer architecture)    3. Computer Books: General    4. Computer software    5. Computers    6. Computers - Languages / Programming    7. Development    8. Hardware - Personal Computers - General    9. Microcomputer Application Software    10. Object-Oriented Programming    11. Object-oriented programming (C    12. Object-oriented programming (Computer science)    13. Programming - Object Oriented Programming    14. Programming - Software Development    15. Programming Languages - Visual C++    16. Computer Software Packages    17. Computers / General    18. Object-oriented programming (OOP)    19. Personal computers   

Reviews (14)

Waiting for the insanity to stop...
Micro$oft is famous for its ability to push out new development technologies. The reason behind this planned obsolesence is obvious, every time they come out with something new people will have to open their wallets to "keep up." A very easy introduction to COM.
Not as good as "Inside COM" which I also rate as a 5 star book but is simpler to understand and can be used very effectively in conjunction with the above named book. Very reasuring to the reader.

Leaves out important code / project settings
I must admit I have just read the 5 first chapters these last 3 days and I feel I've gained a deeper understanding of COM. - However the authors does not state how to set up the VC++ project settings to get the code to work.- I've been fighting of Linker errors most of the time since I startedtyping in the code. It may be I am not proficient enough in VC++ but with alittle help from the book I could be focusing on COM instead of VC++quirks. Read more

Subjects:  1. COM (Computer architecture)    2. Client-Server Computing - General    3. Computer Bks - Languages / Programming    4. Computer Books: Languages    5. Computers    6. DCOM (Computer architecture)    7. Data Processing - General    8. Distributed Computer Systems    9. Distributed processing    10. Electronic data processing    11. Object-Oriented Programming    12. Programming - General    13. Programming - Object Oriented Programming    14. Networking packages    15. Object-oriented programming (OOP)   

Reviews (6)

For C++ developers
Very good book, explains real-worlds issues one faces when developing COM components. Real-world COM+ solutions laid bare
An excellent book. The early chapters reveal solid solutions to oft-encountered COM problems - error handling, string manipulation, smart pointers, multiple-reader single-writer locks, streaming and marshal-by-value etc. The later chapters concentrate mainly on design techniques for building scalable applications. In my (humble) opinion, chapter 13: The MTS Revolution is worth the price of the book alone. This chapter describes the evolution of technologies for building scalable systems, introduces the single-concurrent-client model and explains how to write scalable systems keeping code maintainable and in the general case, lock-free. All would-be COM+/MTS developers should read this chapter! I've read both this and Tim Ewald's Transactional COM+ - both excellent books and compliment each other very well. In my opinion, Brown's chapter 13 is far superior to Ewald's chapter 1. Both attempt to acheive the same thing, coaxing the regular developer into the COM+ mindset, but Brown's offers logical facts and reasoning as opposed to Ewald's non-real-world convoluted IPerson examples.

Required reading for COM+ developers
This is an excellent book; a little pricey, but worth the money if you are serious about COM+.And I mean serious!This is not a beginners book, for that I would recommend "Inside COM+ Base Services" by the same publisher.This book is a little too biased towards MS development environments.For example they compare VC++, VB, and VJ++ and casually mention there are "other capable environments".Hmm.Then again, this is a Microsoft press book, and COM+ is a Microsoft technology, so its to be expected.Read more

Subjects:  1. COM (Computer architecture)    2. Computer Architecture    3. Computer Architecture - General    4. Computer Books And Software    5. Computer software    6. Computers    7. Computers - Languages / Programming    8. Development    9. Electronic Commerce    10. Object-Oriented Programming    11. Programming - Object Oriented Programming    12. Computer Communications & Networking    13. Computers / Electronic Commerce    14. General Theory of Computing    15. Internet   

Reviews (5)

COM Programming by Example
Caveat Emptor;
Yeah Swank does it again
This is the worst example of a programming book I have ever purchased.The worst insult was the fact that even though on the cover it says using ActiveX. A whopping four pages are dedicated to ActiveX which is justscreen shots of what the MS IDE looks like and an explanation blatantlyproclaiming that if the reader wants to learn ActiveX then he or she needsto buy another book.Used car salesman and con artist selling an inferiorproduct use this type of tactic (the Bait and switch). Please heed mywarning save your money. Yeah John Swank does it again hopefully he willnot do it to you.

Swanke does it Again!
I purchased his other two books and this one fill sout my library. I love his examples--whenever I have something to do I try hisbooks first ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Application software    2. COM (Computer architecture)    3. Computer Books And Software    4. Computers    5. Computers - Languages / Programming    6. Development    7. Networking - General    8. Operating Systems - Windows    9. Programming - General    10. Programming - Object Oriented Programming   

Reviews (16)

the one I turn to
Never one to skimp on books, I ordered three with almost exactly the same title on COM/.NET Interop when I needed some information on the subject.Adam Nathan's book is by far my favorite.I've never found an answer in another book that wasn't in Nathan's (and have found many in his that I didn't find anywhere else).
Truly is the Complete Guide
This book has been an invaluble resource on a .NET/COM interop project I've been working on.Don Box's quote on the cover sums up the title nicely, "This is the last book that should be written about COM programming.There is nothing left to say."
Comprehensive interoperability book
Often finding an appropriate and effective bridge to .NET is a time consuming and problematic task, we had to do a lot of research and benchmarking to find an optimal solution. Having this book by Adam Nathan will save time and effort on building these bridges.
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Subjects:  1. Computer Books: General    2. Computer Books: Languages    3. Computers    4. Computers - Languages / Programming    5. Hardware - Personal Computers - General    6. Internet - Browsers    7. Microcomputer Application Software    8. Object-Oriented Programming    9. Programming - Object Oriented Programming    10. Programming Languages - General    11. Computers / Client-Server Computing    12. C Sharp   

Reviews (2)

Practical advise and excellent working samples
I have been pouring through a lot of books on .Net and when I first pulled this book out of the box I thought there may not be much to it because it didn't appear too thick. I couldn't have been more mistaken. A Great Technical Bridge
Its only a couple of months after the retail release of Visual Studio .Net and we are still coming to terms with the new reality - and it will take months and not weeks to feel cool about it! Once you start to feel comfortable with VB.Net the language - I am still a bit shell-shocked - then you have to start thinking about migration and legacy. This is when all the smiles drop! From a time and cost perspective we know that this is where we have to get it right.Read more

Subjects:  1. Computer Books: General    2. Computers - Languages / Programming    3. Programming - General    4. Programming Languages - Visual BASIC    5. Basic, Visual Basic & QBasic    6. Computer Communications & Networking    7. Microsoft .NET    8. Computers    9. Internet - General    10. Visual Basic (visualbasic)   

Reviews (11)

One of my 2 favorite books
I got the 1st edition of this book when it came out, and will get the next edition when it comes out. The book is exactly what it claims to be; I see some negative remarks in previous reviews saying that this book is aworkbook and that other books have more detail. They may have more details(debateble), but don't cut right to the bone with critical info like thisbook does. The info per page ratio is very high. This book is not for thewindows or c/c++ beginner, but is for the COM beginner. (FYI to a previousreview, COM/ActiveX are essentially the same thing, OLE is based uponthese, and the book doesn't cover any "OLE" technology likelinking, embedding etc... and clearly states so at the beginning) May get you started... But
This book is simple, well organized, and easy to read.HOWEVER, that is the book's downside.If you need to write a COM application your going to need more detailed books.Those detailed books will cover what this coversin the first few chapters."Learning DCOM", "InsideCOM+" are places to start

Uncluttered and spare, very fundamental
My favorite COM book.Read more

Subjects:  1. Computer Books: Operating Systems    2. Computers    3. Computers - Languages / Programming    4. OLE (Computer file)    5. Object-Oriented Programming    6. Object-oriented programming (Computer science)    7. Operating Systems - General    8. Programming - Object Oriented Programming    9. Programming Languages - General    10. High level programming languages    11. Internet   

Editorial Review

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Reviews (20)

The best MTS book available
In my opioion, Professional MTS VB Programming is the best MTS book on the market. I have purchased several books on MTS and find that this book is the only book that does more than a satisfactory job in covering both theory and hands on. Not Really Professional
Somehow, this book, doesn't really warrant a Professional Tag to it, I was expecting a more exhaustive treatment of MTS particularly in improving performance. Which is very important when it comes to developing in ASP and VB COM. The author treated this area rather trivially, glancing through the topic with some minor tips that any God fearing vb programmer already knows. The supreme book for VB6 with MTS
I bought this book couple of months ago, as i needed a solution with vb6, mts, sql server and com...difficult task, i said that to mkyself, only just the names conjunction frighten me. But i read this book, file by file, thinking a bit about what i just have read, i tried some small examples and when i finished the book, what i have to do was clear. the problem was 50% solved. i started developing and also reviewing some chapters. the book is well written, it takes you from the basics of mts, com, sql til complicated matters. there are many examples that can help u better understand it. so, when u need vb and mts, read this book! some improvements could be done, e.g. the chapters treating the transations done with ado objects and very important, the transactions between com objects. though these things, i gave it 5 stars. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. BASIC (Computer program language)    2. Computer Books: General    3. Computers    4. Computers - Languages / Programming    5. Microsoft Visual BASIC    6. Programming - General    7. Programming Languages - General    8. Programming Languages - Visual BASIC    9. Basic, Visual Basic & QBasic    10. C & Visual C   

Editorial Review

The Active Template Library (ATL) is the part of the Microsoft Foundation Classes (MFC) used to build reusable and very efficient components in C++. Achieving this efficiency can be difficult, as it requires you to delve into the details of Microsoft's Component Object Model (COM) and ATL itself. With Read more

Reviews (38)

Descent but outdated
I recently ordered this book, and I am currently on chapter 7. If you are looking into ordering this book make sure that you are fairly experienced in c++, and confident with your skills. Also this book is out of date sometimes I ran into trouble because the examples were based on vc++ 5, and i'm using vc++6 and/or vs.net so it would send me lookin on how to implement the examples on modern IDEs. So I would definately recommend ordering Beginning ATL 3 COM Programming, instead of this one.
I am sure there are better.
Chapter 2 was just way too intense. It threw way too much at you, way too fast. I was left feeling overwhelmed, and frustrated. After reading chaps. 2 and 3 four times, I was able to proceed, but chapter 7 proved adisappointment when the example wouldn't work. I even downloaded the codeoff the site, and checked the errata online, to no avail. When the samplesdon't even work...well that's never happened to me before. It just didn'twork. How could anyone rate this book poorly?
This book was one of the best that I have read on a particulartopic...Read more

Subjects:  1. C (Programming Language)    2. Computer Books: Languages    3. Computer Networks    4. Computers    5. Computers - Languages / Programming    6. Programming - Object Oriented Programming    7. Programming Languages - C    8. Programming Languages - C++    9. Programming Languages - Visual C++    10. C & Visual C   

Editorial Review

Aimed at the more experienced developer who needs to get the old and the new in Windows to coexist, Read more

Reviews (6)

From COM to .NET and Back Again
There may be times when you need to access legacy COM DLL's written in non-managed C++ or Visual Basic. This may be as a stop-gap measure until your older legacy code can be updated to .NET. In cases where performance is critical, you may have no desire to ever upgrade your C++ DLL, but would like to use C# for GUI design, rather than Microsoft Foundation Classes. If any of these situations apply, this is the book for you.
Programmer traps missing
This book is definitely a good starting point. It covers most of the topics, a newcomer would like to see and enables both, the .NET programmer and the COM programmer (which is most likely a VB programmer) to find a way into the material. Andrew Troelsen 's another master piece...
The very first book of his I bought about three years ago was COM and ATL3.0. The thing I liked about that book was the way the author explained the difficult concepts of ATL and COM in plain english.Read more

Subjects:  1. Computer Books: Languages    2. Computers    3. Computers - Languages / Programming    4. Hardware - Personal Computers - General    5. Internet - General    6. Microcomputer Application Software    7. Object-Oriented Programming    8. Programming - Object Oriented Programming   

Editorial Review

The powers of Microsoft NT BackOffice technology, such as Microsoft Transaction Server (MTS), Active Directory, and other services, are now within Visual C++ programmers' reach, thanks to this guide. Written for those already familiar with COM and Active Template Library (ATL) programming, this guide provides essential information on the latest and greatest in Microsoft server-side technologies.Read more

Reviews (9)

Hello? ... DCOM is no more.
Micro$oft is famous for its ability to push out new development technologies. The reason behind this planned obsolesence is obvious, every time they come out with something new people will have to open their wallets to "keep up." quite a mouth full.
If you are the kind of people who wish to download source code as it first appears on the web and if you are the kind of people in a hurry to get into the act with all the issues as soon as possible, then this book is for you. Should really be called "Win32 Enterprise Primer"
The title of this book is deceiving. Writing enterprise software for Win32 involves a lot of COM based technology. This book is an excellent introduction for all these technologies provided that the person already has some fundamental knowledge of basic COM (Hence the"Professional" in the title). I have not seen a better book outthere that both addresses the technologies AND has working samples of thosetechnologies. Most COM/DCOM/COM+ books out there today start with rehashesof Dale Rogerson's Inside COM book... I am tired of seeing all the books out there that hasthe exact same explanation of connection points, the exact explanation ofIUnknown, and basically the exact same 3 introductory chapters!. LearningCOM is a two-pronged process. First, you must be able to get comfortablewith the technology (hence, Rogerson's book), then you have to learn theservices built around the technology (This book does that!). I can see whythis book got such poor reviews, because those people reading the book werenot ready for the onslaught of information in this book (believe me,there's more useful information in these 400+ pages than there is in most600-1000+ page COMeverything books). ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Computer Books: Languages    2. Computers    3. Computers - Languages / Programming    4. DCOM (Computer architecture)    5. Distributed Computer Systems    6. Distributed processing    7. Electronic data processing    8. Management Information Systems    9. Object-oriented programming (Computer science)    10. Programming - Object Oriented Programming    11. Programming - Software Development    12. Programming Languages - General    13. C & Visual C    14. Computer Hardware & Operating Systems    15. Networking packages   

Editorial Review

Besides being one of the most readable and understandable guides to the Microsoft Component Object Model (COM) (and related technologies) ever written, Alan Gordon's Read more

Reviews (22)

C++ programmmer trying to learn COM
The book is riddled with errors. It's ridiculous how much time I've wasted trying to fix the author's mistakes in the code. While the content might be worthwile from an academic standpoint, the time you'll spend debugging the examples will drive you crazy. Very pool editorial quality.

Good teacher, dated, and brutally sloppy production
The author knows how to write and teach.He leads you through some examples and through a lot of code and wizards.The examples are detailed, but for Visual Studio 6, and sometimes a little cryptic for those who are using .Net/VS7.VS7 changes a lot, so a lot of his code examples don't really apply anymore, though VS7 is backwards compatible (mostly), so if you type what the VS6 wizards generate, it'll still work.
He is a real teacher !
Think about it. If you have a knowledgeable teacher who does not know how to teach you whereas you have a normal teacher who does know how to teach you. Who would you choose ?
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Subjects:  1. Application software    2. COM (Computer architecture)    3. Computer Books: Languages    4. Computer Books: Operating Systems    5. Computers    6. Computers - Languages / Programming    7. Development    8. Hardware - Personal Computers - General    9. Microcomputer Application Software    10. Object-Oriented Programming    11. Operating Systems - NT    12. Programming - Object Oriented Programming    13. Computers / Operating Systems / NT    14. Microsoft Windows    15. Networking packages    16. Programming languages   

Reviews (9)

Is COM or DCOM or COM+ still relevant?
The Component Object Model (COM) was introduced by Microsoft in 1993 to solve several problems.The leading problem was the inability to reuse code because class encapsulation was incomplete.Therefore certain implementation details of methods inside a class could inadvertently become exposed and exploited by some users and not by others.This made changing the implementation problematic.The underlying concept of COM is to make it possible to design and deploy software components much as electronic devices can be built from resistors, capacitors and inductors.You can safely replace a resistor of a certain number of ohms with a like resistor and be absolutely certain the replacement resistor will function identically to the replaced resistor.With components that act like black boxes and perform well defined functions in undocumented ways, you are well on your way to having replaceable software components.Next came the problem of versioning where a component would retain all of its previous functionality yet add some new ones.Users of the old version would not enjoy the benefits of the new version yet would function perfectly with the new version.Users of the new version would function with the old version after deciding the new version was unavailable and degrading their expectations.Versioning is carried out through unique 128-bit integer identifiers called Globally Unique IDs.Then COM goes a bit crazy with concepts like apartments and non-stack, non-heap special memory areas for passing across communications link and special types called variants that must be used in place of familar types.For example, a CString becomes a BSTR in COM.A COM object is instantiated through a special API call which returns a pointer to an interface through which other methods can be located and called.The housekeeping rules include careful reference counting so that unused objects can be removed from memory when the reference count goes to zero.On the whole, COM solves many problems yet is extremely cumbersome.No doubt, many careers have been made becoming expert with COM.Luckily, COM has been functionally replaced with the .NET framework which offers all of the advantages of COM with none of the muss or fuss.COM will be with us for a long time since major products are written using COM to include core business applications at some of the world's largest enterprises.I avoid COM as much as possible because I think it is ugly even though it serves a purpose.I am happy because there is an alternative.So, if you want to learn COM, by all means buy this book.But know that the technology is over a decade old and is slowly on its way out of favor.

Good book but dataded
The book is out of date. I've found it very interesting

A treat for any COM/DCOM Programmer...
I wish I had read this book earlier, Whenmost of the books dealt with a lot of theory, this is one book which makes you feel like you handled a real-life project.The sample Programmeis very generic and shouldinterestone and all, He delves systematically into the subject. If one wereuncomfortable with MIDL, I suggest he/she go thro' this book and come outall the wiser. I have yet to see a book which deals with conversionproblems and solutions while converting a client-server model to a webmodel. A few things I found lacking were examples on threaded apartmentsand surrogates. But I give it full marks still because the parts coveredare given such a nice treatment. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Computer Bks - Languages / Programming    2. Computer Books And Software    3. Computers    4. DCOM (Computer architecture)    5. Distributed Computer Systems    6. Distributed processing    7. Electronic data processing    8. Management Information Systems    9. Object-Oriented Programming    10. Object-Oriented programming (C    11. Object-Oriented programming (Computer science)    12. Programming - General    13. Programming - Object Oriented Programming    14. Programming Languages - General    15. Computer Communications & Networking    16. Object-oriented programming (OOP)   

Editorial Review

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Reviews (29)

Disappointing book
The book covers ActiveX/COM but in a very wordy fashion. Pages and pages of irrelevant text make finding the core issues difficult. Some of the topic examples are reasonably useful, others are extremely trite. Surely Appleman can come up with better scenarios than rabbits in hutches. Second review and this is still a bad book
About a year ago, I wrote a review about this book.Everyone was saying that this was a great book, so when I gave this book only 1 star, I took alot of heat from people who think that "Dan's the Man!!".I decided to review this book again.This is my second review and my result is still the same.Dan may be the guru of Visual Basic but he cannot communicate those thoughts into written words.Don't get me wrong, Dan knows how to talk and this book is full of talk, but talk is not teaching nor will talk help you master the advanced subjects such as COM.In this book, Dan starts to tell you about subject, then he goes off on a tangent.Sooner or later, he might return to the subject.The cartoons in the book have a striking resemblance to "Bevis and Butthead".That is a scary thought!Bevis and Butthead becoming software developers and then writing a book about it.The cheap sales pitches for software that his company sells should have been put into an appendix.This book is a very large book (800+ pages) but if you cut out the cartoons and all of the talk, this book would be 1/2 of it's size. I recommend Peter Vogel's book "Visual Basic Object and Component Handbook" instead. Dan is a very smart man but that does not mean he is a great author.

Good book for someone who only likes to read
I buy most programming books with the expectation that there will be some step by step modules geared toward developing some type of application.I found nothing of the sort in this book.I found a lot of code to demonstrate what the author was saying.I felt the whole book - was geared toward the history and explanation of what various programming components were all about.I am an accomplished ASP Web/Database Developer and was interested in learning how to write activex components.I thank the author for wasting my money! ... Read more

Subjects:  1. ActiveX    2. BASIC (Computer program language)    3. Basic