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Summary: A New Way to Learn COM
Review: COM was an unbelievabley difficult system to add to Windows, yet as an application programmer, you'll find it takes up a small fraction of your programming time--but only if you can find out how to use it and what it won't do for you. Which can be a problem considering most books on the subject seem to take the viewpoint of the system architect--how was COM designed and what's the philosophy behind it--not how to use it and what its failings are. When I have a deadline to meet and objects to write, I don't want to have to read a whole chapter on the pluses and minuses of reference counters. Sure it builds character, but I'm not about to change the design by knowing about it, no more then I want to find out the story behind "for" loop in C++. No vote will be taken at the end. When I started reading one authoritative book on COM, I knew I was in trouble when the author started talking about the German philospher, Kant. I knew hockey and gnome stories weren't far behind and not much else.In fact COM is an easy API to learn, especially through examples. But don't be fooled by the title--most "By Example" books don't have any more usable examples in them then any other book. "By Example" was used because "For Morons" and "With Feeling" were already taken. The format of my book is actually different then any book you've read. There's a four chapter section at the front that details the technology (sort of a Cliff Notes for COM) followed by dozens of numbered examples that can be imported directly into your application. I used the same approach in two books on MFC and use those books constantly to snap applications together using those examples. Or to make a long story short--try it, you'll like it....
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Summary: Yeah Swank does it again
Review: 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 his books first
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Summary: Swanke does it Again!
Review: 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 his books first
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Summary: Good, concise intro, but the rest is fluff
Review: The first 100 pages provides a good concise overview of COM programming. It is well written and to the point. However, the remaining section (250 pages) of examples was disappointing. The examples were shells only and had only a summary explanation of each. The same content was copied over and over in all the examples. For example, the "How to register the DLL" explaination, which took almost a page, was copied verbatim in the other examples. Instead of building on a concept, it was simply repeated. 90% of the examples were MFC generated code. It seemed to be more an attempt to fatten up the book rather than to provide content. In short, I think one would be better off with another book that can provide more in-depth examples that one can learn from. Not just the same MFC code again and again.
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Summary: Finally a COM Book I Can Understand
Review: This book has helped me tremendously. The style of the book is exactly what I needed. It seems like most of the other books Ive bought and "borrowed" made COM seem like some kind of mystical thing, but this book just tells it like it is. I agree with the last reviewer that the first few examples have a repeatd warning in them about calling an init function, but the rest of the examples were all new and just what I needed.
Rating:
Summary: Finally a COM Book I Can Understand
Review: This book has helped me tremendously. The style of the book is exactly what I needed. It seems like most of the other books Ive bought and "borrowed" made COM seem like some kind of mystical thing, but this book just tells it like it is. I agree with the last reviewer that the first few examples have a repeatd warning in them about calling an init function, but the rest of the examples were all new and just what I needed.
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Summary: Yeah Swank does it again
Review: 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 just screen shots of what the MS IDE looks like and an explanation blatantly proclaiming that if the reader wants to learn ActiveX then he or she needs to buy another book. Used car salesman and con artist selling an inferior product use this type of tactic (the Bait and switch). Please heed my warning save your money. Yeah John Swank does it again hopefully he will not do it to you.
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