MFC Programming in C++ With the Standard Template Libraries

Rating:
Summary: A Tale of Two Technologies
Review: Prentice-Hall is renowned for the consistent quality of their textbooks, but someone surely dropped the ball on this one! The book purports to integrate two technologies, STL and MFC, but ends up being a very poor introduction to both, with no integration whatever. Actually, the only real interface issue of any consequence is how to serialize STL containers, and the book remains totally silent on this topic. There is no comparison given between the use of MFC containers and STL containers. The coding examples are stylistically inept, and the use of STL within the MFC framework is superficial, and provides no motivation to use this powerful technology. The book is shamelessly padded with lists without reference, class hierarchies without discussion, wizard-generated code without explanation, and screen shots without relevance. Most disturbing of all, it is full of errors, both factual and typographical. My recommendation is to buy two separate books on these technologies. For example, "The C++ Standard Library" by Josuttis is readable, replete with good examples, and a very good reference; "Programming Windows with MFC" by Prosise provides a thorough exposition on MFC. Sure, these books together will cost slightly more than twice the current book, but will provide one hundred times the value.