Rating: 
Summary: Don't waste your time or money
Review: A better book would be Essential COM by Don Box. There is too much customized code which gets in the way of understanding COM.
Rating:
Summary: Don't waste your time or money
Review: Too much custom code. After reading the book, you'll come out with the very basics of what come does. The samples on CD are useless. I just don't recommend this book. Other books such as Essential COM & Professional ATL COM Programming are much better. No matter what, learning COM is a monumental task.
Rating: 
Summary: Ok, this is the skinny on COM...
Review: Ok, this is the skinny on COM:
1) COM is hard
2) you will not learn COM by reading only one book
3) attempt COM in stages: read about it, use someone elses servers, write your own
servers, write your own servers in a multi-threaded environment
To learn COM you must take weeks of expensive courses or read these books in this order:
1) "Understanding ActiveX and OLE": optional; easy read but recommended
2) "Inside COM": strongly recommended; if you really appreciate "Essential COM" without reading this first you are smarter than I am
3) "Multithreading Applications in Win32": strongly recommended
4) "Essential COM": essential; once you have your COM bearings read this book, then read it again in 6 months to realize how many details you missed the first time
5) "Beginning Atl Com Programming": recommended
6) "Effective COM": optional
7) "Essential ATL": optional
8) "Inside OLE2": optional, for brave souls only
Whew! That is a lot but it all really is required. If you attempt shortcuts or read the books out of order, you risk being crushed by someone who really knows COM. Oh yeah, you must also know C++ cold, suspend your beliefs about C++ objects, and be open to the idea of distributed components. Good luck!
Rating: 
Summary: Good writing style, good detailed content, but only C++
Review: I think this is a very good book. Although I noticed someone else complained about the authors anecdotal style, I find it helps keep my attention through what could be incredibly tedious technical details. By writing this way I think he has been able to include a great deal of detail without putting everyone to sleep, which is good, IMHO. An example (while talking about reference counting): "It is far too easy for another programmer...to screw up the lifetimes and break the optimized reference counts."The warning that isn't made clear enough, however, is that this is really only a C++ book. If C++ isn't the language you plan to use, I would not recommend this book (and the fine print on the back cover does say this book is for "intermediate to advanced C++ programmers").
Rating:
Summary: Awsome book, A must read to understand COM
Review: I have found this book very interesting to read, and a full of resource to understand the complex issues of COM. The book also explains awsomely the issues like dlls, concept of registry, GUID etc,that are essential for writing COM. A must read for any one who wants to understand the COM with a good sense of humour.
Rating: 
Summary: Chapter 10 is the worst
Review: The author stuffs everything in a dir and provides readers a make file without much comments, which makes readers stay inside COM but do not know where to go!
Rating:
Summary: Excellent book on COM fundamentals
Review: This is an excellent book for those who want to understand how COM works. The book is written in logical order with plenty of examples and in good humor. I would recomend this book to anyone who wants to grasp COM fundamentals and don't yawn while at it.
Rating:
Summary: A great way to begin the process of learning COM
Review: Rogerson uses many great analogies to bring the technical subject of component programming down to a level where it can be digested quickly and well understood!
Rating:
Summary: Give you some good foundation of writing COM in C++
Review: This book presents what COM is, gives good basic COM programming from a C++ coding perspective. If you don't know C++, do not buy the book. It is not a practical book. It just takes too much time to write COM this way. After you know the basic of COM, you will need other book(s) to do the actual COM development...and then this Inside COM probably stays inside the shelf forever. And some years later, you probably think of this book as the COM appreciation book. For the amount of information it provides, this book is over price.
Rating:
Summary: the MUMBO JUMBO approach ...
Review: The author is obviously confused with the genre of technical writing. There are so many detailed descriptions of irrelevant personal experiences, stories, etc. that they're very annoying when you try to find the INFORMATION. Mr. Rogerson should have tried writing novels instead.
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