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.
Read more

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.
Read more

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 (4)

Covers the Basics of using ATL server
I'm glad that there's finally one book about atl server, but this one seems to have been written in haste. Sure it shows you how to hook up to a database and pull out records, but the examples are not nearly as complex as msdn's . In particular, the caching section is seriously lacking...

Fantastic Addition to ATL
The ATL Server library is the perfect addition to ATL, adding the ability to create web services and web applications with the light-weight model of ATL. I found this book very useful for getting new members of my development team up to speed on the basics of ATL Server development (both those with previous ISAPI experience and those without). The Definitive Guide to ATL Server
This is an excellent book on the definitive technology for VC++ developers wanting to write web applications.ATL Server is the evolution of ISAPI; better, faster and much easier to write.If you are comfortable with C++ template programming and attributed Visual C++, you will find this framework a joy to work with.Just like ATL, ATL Server is streamlined, high performance and easy to extend.Read more

Subjects:  1. Computer Books: Languages    2. Computers    3. Computers - Languages / Programming    4. Networking - General    5. Programming - General    6. Programming - Software Development    7. Programming Languages - C++    8. Computers / Programming / Software Development   

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 (1)

deals with many legacy issues
Tavares and his co-authors present a specialised guide to the latest version of Active Template Library. It's for the C++ programmer on a Microsoft machine, who is also familiar with the Component Object Model. The authors specifically state that you really do need expertise in the latter.
Read more

Subjects:  1. Active template library    2. Application software    3. Computer Books: Languages    4. Computers    5. Computers - Languages / Programming    6. Data Processing - General    7. Development    8. Internet - Application Development    9. Miscellaneous Software    10. Programming - General    11. Programming - Software Development    12. Software Development    13. Computers / Data Processing    14. Object-oriented programming (OOP)   

Editorial Review

Written for the advanced C++ programmer, Read more

Reviews (58)

ATL Internals Book
Very professional and prompt. The book arrived earlier than the estimated date and in perfect condition.

This is a six star book
ATL internals is the final word on ATL. No other book is needed to master ATL. Don't do ATL or COM without it
This is simply one book that you do not want to be without when designing and implementing a COM project.I purchased the book after I found myself in my first COM project and without any coworkers with any experience in this area.As a comment, I've also rummaged around the Internet and purchase ...books in the effort to come up to speed as quickly as I can. ATL Internals is the best source of data on ATL that I've found so far. Read more

Subjects:  1. Active template library    2. Application software    3. Computer Books: General    4. Computers    5. Computers - Languages / Programming    6. Development    7. Microcomputer Application Software    8. Microcomputer Operating Environments    9. Operating Systems - Windows    10. Programming - Object Oriented Programming    11. Programming Languages - C++    12. C & Visual C    13. Computers / Data Processing    14. Microsoft Windows    15. Object-oriented programming (OOP)   

Reviews (10)

Good first chapter
The author had a good idea in Chapter 1 for developing the rationale for COM. It was an interesting read, and educational, without hardly even mentioning the term, COM. From there the writing went downhill. I'm an experienced programmer with a fair amount of prior exposure to COM, but the author lost me before the end of his 90-page chapter 2 on designing interfaces. He failed to introduce new terms before using them. He strung dozens of topics together with no apparent connection or organizing framework. Rationale was missing. I labored over this chapter but gained very little understanding. The text was well edited for the most part, but three stars overall is generous.

Bad style
The book is incredibly difficult to read from cover to cover.Instead of just getting to the point, there is so much verbiage as to make the whole thing unintelligible.The examples, with the VCR/TV analogy in the first chapter, were simply confusing and could have been made more clear IMHO.
Well worth the reading
I found this book to be an excellent reference from the minute I opened it. I began by paging through the chapters but almost immediately found areas that helped with the project I was currently working on.Read more

Subjects:  1. Active template library    2. C++ (Computer program language    3. C++ (Computer program language)    4. Computer software    5. Computers    6. Computers - Languages / Programming    7. Development    8. Distributed Computer Systems    9. Management Information Systems    10. Object-Oriented Programming    11. Object-oriented programming (C    12. Object-oriented programming (Computer science)    13. Programming - Object Oriented Programming    14. Reference    15. Computers / Programming / Systems Analysis & Design    16. High level programming languages    17. Microsoft Windows   

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.
Read more

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

Read more

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