Rating: 
Summary: It does what it set out to do!
Review: This is a great book for quickly getting up to speed in writing Windows programs with Visual C++. It is not, nor does it claim to be, a complete tutorial on C++, MFC or writing any particuclar type of program. It will not teach you how to write games or databases. This is a book for beginners.If you have the time, you could read through two seperate books, C++ Primer Plus (4th Edition) by Stephen Prata and Programming Windows With MFC by Jeff Prosise. Prata's book does not cover MFC (after all you could have a career writing C++ programs and never write anything for windows) and Prosise's book assumes you have a good working knowledge of C++. All in all, I recommend Horton's Beginning Visual C++.
Rating: 
Summary: Does what the title suggests
Review: This book is a solid beginners text. Given that there are MANY absolutely terrible books for beginners to C++, that alone distinguishes it. It should be noted that this is not an advanced level text, so if you are looking for advanced concepts, odds are they are either not here, or are touched on only briefly here. If you are looking for advanced C++ language issues, try "The C++ Programming Language" by Stroustrup. The biggest flaw is that once you start the windows programming with mfc section in this book, you basically have to go through the chapters sequentially, because one example is built over the course of half the book. As a result, if you try to jump straight to the DLL chapter, for example, you will find that you need to have completed the other chapters.
Rating:
Summary: Good bbok.
Review: I have a handful of years experience in Java, learned vb 6 to do some windows development but it fell short when it came to making services and multi-threaded applications. i was familiar with the C syntax already and had a good grasp of OOP from my java experience. I was able to plow through the pages of this book in a two or three weeks and get down all the code I needed. It does not cover any of the advanced topics I needed to implement but helped me get there quickly.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent Book
Review: This is an excellent book for starters.
Rating:
Summary: Great
Review: I loved this book. This book started me on C++ and quickly put me ahead of anyone else I know. I'm a 16 year old male focusing mainly towards game programming. Something a lot of people said was "you're learning C++ backwards" when I asked them about things presented in the beginning of this book - I think it was great that he doesn't hesitate to cover a wide range of semi-advanced topics right there in the beginning. This book clearly explains many different things about C++ and Visual C++. Rather than either skipping or waiting until later, he teaches things such as "bitwise operators", something you don't hear much about. The thing is, since I'm a game programmer, these operators are extremely useful. I recommend this book to anyone who is a fast learner and wants to learn C++.
Rating:
Summary: Very technical book...
Review: I do like this book because it is so technical. It goes into great detail about Visual C++ 6 and starts at the beginning assuming you know very little about the language. I did go out and buy Microsoft Visual C++ 6 (go to Ebay and save a lot of money) so I would be able to learn as I do, so that is something you may want to think about before buying this book. This book is large, so it's not for those who want to learn in a few nights. If you're looking for a good book on Visual C++ 6 then I'd highly suggest this one.
Rating: 
Summary: Horrible
Review: I just hated this book.The author has this one example that he uses for 10 chapters.So if you suddenly wanna learn how to write a Dll you have to go back atleast 5 chapters and read everything.Besides what kind of an example is the draw line,circle and curve.The author should have used a more mature and useful example.I do not recommend it to anyone.
Rating:
Summary: An honorary classic
Review: The author has a friendly writing style that makes learning C++ easier. Its a dry topic and if a book is easy to read, its that much better!
Rating: 
Summary: Not a real-life sample to be found
Review: I agree with another reviewer who stated "at the end of the book, I still don't know how to do simple things". It's impossible to find things you'd use in real-world programming in this book. Take his COM coverage for example: a COM object that determines what the monitor refresh rate is. Who CARES? How about a COM example of exchanging data from one program to another? Granted, COM requires a separate volume to cover, but why even include it if you're going to give us something this useless? If you're learning C++ because you've got a project at work to do, then look for another reference. Simple things like "_T" are not even in the index of the book. You'll be searching for answers elsewhere.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent Book
Review: Ivor Horton does an excellent job in all aspects with this book. C++ can be a difficult language to tackle, but Ivor removes all the mysticism from this subject. You are in good hands with Ivor. I definitely recommend this book for those who want to learn Visual C++, or for those like me who simply wanted a better reference covering the basics.
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