<< 1 >>
Rating: 
Summary: Best Winsock/network programming book out there
Review: As a professional networking software tester I have read atleast parts of most of the network programming books out there, andthis is the best of them so far. As previously mentioned the authors concentrate primarily on Winsock and mostly on C/C++ (as any serious network programmer should in both cases). Since this book does cover so many subjects though, some of the more peripheral subjects are mentioned relatively briefly, but hey, that's what SDK's are for. Concentrating on the main subject the authors do a great job of explaining Winsock and its application. I was particularly impressed by the comprehensive way in which they covered the differences between protocols, and between operating systems. It was also impressive (especially for an MSPress book) that they point out all the idiosyncracies and occasional bugs in the different implementations of Winsock. Obviously this book is intended for at least an intermediately skilled programmer, but should work well as a reference and an introduction to new topics (such as QOS, multicasting, and LSP's) to even more experienced coders.To allay the conspiracy fears of those Linux people out there, I am not affiliated in any way with Microsoft Corporation or MSPress.
Rating: 
Summary: Of No Useful Help
Review: Hi. I bought this book about four months ago. I wanted to learn winsock and develop simple network programs for Windows. This book offers everything I need to develop small scale programs such as an FTP client and large scale programs such as an FTP server. Anthony Jones and Jim Ohmund do a great job explaining useful winsock tools in detail via concrete examples. Furthermore, they demonstrate powerful non-blocking I/O models including WSAAsyncSelect, WSAEventSelect, Overlapped Model, and Completion Port Model. To top it off, there is a section where they give a recommendation as to which model is best depending on the project. Network Programming for Microsoft Windows Second Edition is an excellent reference for winsock IPv4 and IPv6 programming in Microsoft Windows. This book definitely provides network programmers lots of tools. In fact, there are chapters that go way beyond the basics for the typical and simple network programs. For example, the authors go over registration, name resolution, multicasting, generic quality of service, winsock service provider interface, and remote access service. Lastly, there are two chapters reserved for C# and VB programmers. I highly recommend this book for advanced C++ programmers and winsock programmers. Kuphryn
Rating:
Summary: Superb reference for MS Network and Winsock API's.
Review: I purchased this book for coverage of the Winsock 2.0 API and found it to be an excellent Winsock API Reference and much more. The text was very well laid out. I'm a C/C++ programmer as well as a beginner VB programmer, and I too thought the examples were clear, practical, and to the point. I disagree with dave's comment below and woudl recommend this book to anyone interested in learning network programming on the Window's environment.
Rating: 
Summary: Scatter-gather approach
Review: Patience is a virtue, Avatar. You'll need a good deal of patience while reading this book. While there is an enormous amount of valuable information in the text, I'm not sure that the book itself was actually edited. Several of the descriptions seem to drag on continuously, while a fair amount of bird walking is done in other places. I don't fault the authors with this, though. As I understand it, one of the editor's jobs is to make sure a book is grammatically correct and easy to read. Another problem that I've noticed involves incorrect chapter references. For example, the SO_CONNECT_TIME referenced in chapter 7 (p. 205) refers you to chapter 6 (p. 177) for an explanation. Chapter 6 refers you to chapter 5. Are these guys doctors? Will my insurance cover this? :) Programming in C# minor. 12 pages here. There really is a chapter 13. Don't flip too fast; you might miss it. Now, granted, I'm not a C# programmer, so I haven't thoroughly looked at the contents of the chapter. However, judging from the skimpiness alone, I imagine that a lot more could have been covered. In fairness chapters 5 - 12 are packed with some very useful information, and the C# chapter was probably just icing. So, overall I would recommend this book. However, the book's organization and overall appearance (no shading of code samples, tables, etc.) are lacking considerably. These issues and the poor editing earn a generous 3 stars.
Rating: 
Summary: Two Stars. Not a Fraction More.
Review: The best I can say is that this book looks like it has a lot of information. But what good is it if you have to wade through words "up to here" just to get at it? Do they pay these guys by the word? It's just not an efficient book. If I couldn't teach any better than this I'd get another job.
Rating:
Summary: Great! But be careful.
Review: The book has been written in an easy style. The first few chapters in particular have been written in a simple and easy to understand manner. Not the kinds that drives away beginners. The book makes a good attempt at being complete, it covers a good deal of IPV6 along with IPV4. Most examples are easy to follow and good to go - I copy pasted a lot of samples and they just worked. Though it covers the basics of many protocols, given the impact that HTTP has on the internet, I think the book can dedicate a few more pages detailing HTTP mechanisms and Winsock based HTTP apps... Otherwise, this book is really good to have.
Rating: 
Summary: Great material, overall good presentation
Review: These days any developer is capable of throwing together a network server application, but developing a truly efficient and scalable server is akin to black magic for most. This update covers the material well, and gives the reader excellent advice on how to build better networking software with an understanding of what is going on behind the scenes. My one nit would be that the examples don't compile out of the box with VC 6.0 on either NT or Win2k, even with fairly recent platform SDK headers. After a bit of error tracing and reading the book, I found that most were written using new name resolution functions found in XP, and while they will work with older platforms, it required downloading the latest platform SDK... Since you can't download just the headers, you're going to need either a fast connection or a lot of time. It would have been nice to have this documented in the book, the code or at least in a 'readme.txt' file. Since the SDK is available for free, why not stick it on the CD since you can't work with the books material without it?
Rating:
Summary: Completion Ports and Sockets
Review: This has to be the final authority on the complex topic of completion ports, sockets, and scalable servers. In fact, it may be the only such authority. The authors have done a great job of making the relationship between sockets and completion ports clear. I would recommend this book to anyone interested in network protocols on the Windows platforms. The one fault I would find is that, although the authors' code is C++, it might as well be C. They make no use of C++ features. Especially absent are classes that encapsulate the complexities of the protocols discussed.
Rating:
Summary: The book is tough & stuff not well explained
Review: This is the only book, I can find for windows network programming. Unfortunately, stuff here is not well explained & if you are not a expert, do not expect to learn network programming from this book. Atleast not without a great deal of pain.
Rating:
Summary: Bad source code
Review: You would think the authors know what they are talking about when they write a book. But the source code provided does not run if you don't meet very strict requirements. The authors work for Microsoft. And they are tester/devloper. But neither they nor microsoft press bother to run their codes. My question is, if their codes are not good. How can you trust the book contents.
<< 1 >>
| 
