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Summary: This Book Is Not for The Weak At Heart!
Review: If you are under pressure and have a development project with an impossible deadline... and you need to learn COM, this is not the one for you. You need prayers, in that case. If, however, you have just a little bit of time to decipher the intricate isms and schizms concerning Ape and Gorilla classes as they relate to the Component Object Model, there can be no better book. This is one of those books that is clearly for the geese, and not the gander. But mastering the pattern of thought of this strange fellow might well become a rite-of-passage into the battlefield of COMology.
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Summary: The COM book
Review: This is the best book on COM by any standards. I have seen very few books which pack such a great punch in so few pages. Hope Don Box writes a similar book on DCOM,MTS and MSMQ.
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Summary: Excellent Coverage of COM
Review: This book does an excellent job of covering the intricacies of COM, from simple usage to more complex topics like marshalling and security. Every COM developer should read this book.
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Summary: Just What I wanted !
Review: 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.
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Summary: Excellent book for a COM developer
Review: Excellent book for a COM developer. Very good discussions on the concept of COM. It is not a cooking book, though. I took One star off because of coclass topic, I think it is very confusing even for a person who is familiar with the concept.
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Summary: Very detailed, pretty demanding
Review: The first 100 pages explain the basics of COM very detailed, but understandable nevertheless. However, when I wanted to use existing COM objects, I found myself lost in even more details on how to write my own COM objects. That was when I switched to "Inside COM". I keep turning to Don's book often for reference and in-depth information, where it is hard to beat.
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Summary: The book is fantastic but requires your cooperation
Review: The book is the best COM book I've read. I was tempted to give it 5 stars, but IMHO the only thing which prevents it from being perfect is that different chapters have different levels of complexity. Chapters introducing interfaces and classes are incredible. But when describing apartments, author quickly goes into details about marshalling. IMHO most of experienced developers are good enough to easily capture the essence of interfaces and classes, but understanding apartments is a traditionally difficult task. When reading the book, I had to have breaks just to make some drawings to epxlain to myself how apartments work. But if I didn't have to solve synchronization problems in my previous projects, I might have been left wihout understanding why do we need apartments in COM at all. I also think that low level details about custom marshalling are not really necessary.However, this book is a must for a COM developer. But you should be really willing to learn the foundations of COM. I read a complaint from another reader that the author doesn't even mention MFC, and I must strongly disagree. COM is not about MFC or ATL etc. It is other Windows-based products that should refer to COM if they want to stay in touch with reality.
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Summary: This book provides the best explanation of COM.
Review: In my opinion, this book provides the best, and in some cases the only, explanations of the motivations for and bases of the Component Object Model. In other words, read this book if you want to understand not only the "how" but also the "why" of COM. If you are looking for something more meaningful in a book than screen shots, then I would highly recommend this book. As a bonus, this book is an absolute pleasure to read.
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Summary: Comprehensive, but pathetic writing
Review: A strange book--somewhat helpful for an already knowledgable reader, but totally impenetrable for a Com novice. On the positive side, the book does cover a lot of ground and is probably worth having _among_ other books on that topic. I don't regret having bought it (I got if for real cheap though <g>.) The weekness of this book, imo, is a combination of inferior writing with the pervasive attempts to sound "scientific-like". What could be said in a single phrase, clearly and in good English, the author time and again manages to put in a paragraph or more of pathetic pompous puffing--which, besides being laughable, is beclouding the issues at hand rather significantly. This last fault is shared by many books from the "Object Techonology" series, and I think Addison Wesley is burying their reputation by publishing these vaporous blasts of pompous OO gobbledegook. I absolutely don't recommend this book as a first or only one--better get "Inside Com" (it's not flawless--nothing from MSPress is--but at least it's written in plain, everyday English.) "Inside DCOM" is probably better too. Finally, I'm sorry we have to read this stuff at all <g>. Avoid it if you can.
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Summary: YOU DECIDE: READ THE COM SPEC OR SIMPLY DIG THROUGH E COM
Review: I hesitate to say this because it may be a slight overstatement, but Don's Essensial COM is probably the best investment I've ever made in a computer book. If you want to learn COM then buy this text! There's one caveat however. You have to want to learn and you have to be willing to invest time and effort. If you have what it takes and you apply yourself you can use Don's text to significantly reduce the amount of time you would otherwise spend coming up to speed. Any other source is going to be three times as much reading and still leave you with gaps in your understanding. Every essential detail about COM is covered with a consiseness that you will not find elsewhere. I can't wait for any future Don Box publications!
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