COM+ Programming from the Ground Up

Rating:
Summary: Mr. Michaelis does not shine.
Review: I read this book on COM+ and I must say that it is not good. Mr. Michaelis simply does not write correctly. I must say that broken English is fine when chatting with the guys at the office, but wholy unneccessary when in print. But I guess this is a technical book so I should review my problems with the programming. While they are numerous they can best be described as "theoretical." I think the examples are very contrived. It is my opinion that Michaelis does not have a lot of real world experience. Better examples would have elevated my score on this one.

Rating:
Summary: Good Read BUT.......
Review: In the first place this book is not by Schildt, not that it matters. It's not really necessary to be obscure about the author. Also, this book is a COM/ATL book. COM+ comes up only at the very end of the book.

This is definitely a how-to book. It only assumes that one knows the rudiments of C++ and then it takes you through the Visual Studio ATL Wizard in creating simple COM servers. However, there are some irritating lapses in detailing all the steps.

There are a lot of detailed code samples that demonstrate topics like error support, dual interfaces, aggregation, etc. But there is a limit as to how far code samples can take someone in learning something as complicated as COM and ATL. The chapter on connection points presents mountains of code that relys on some concepts or techniques that had not been well developed, if at all.

The author does not discuss the class structure of ATL. It's a big leap to go from generic, simple class factories to CComObjectCached. Object maps and COM maps would remain a puzzle. For those who want simple and believe that programming is adapting code samples to your needs, this might be the book for you. Or it could be a place to start. I give the book four stars because it probably successfully meets a certain need.

Rating:
Summary: Good Read BUT.......
Review: Personally, I have read a few of the Ground Up Series of books and I do like them. The book is easier to follow than many of the other books out there, However, I have found that the examples do not work when you type them in. That was a source of great fustration to me....

Rating:
Summary: Excellent!
Review: Starts with COM - showing you how to do everything using Visual C++ step by step. Then takes you through DCOM, COM+ and ActiveX. Very thorough and well written.

Rating:
Summary: Superb
Review: This book begins with a look at how to program COM using raw C++ and then transitions to ATL. This provides a superb foundation in the underlying COM internals so that it is clear how COM works under the covers. After showing how to build a COM server and Client using ATL it discusses the essential COM principals such as IDL, #import, oleautomation data types, error handling, DCOM etc. The chapter on the different threading models is especially good. Finally, it delves into the details of COM+ and builds an entire COM+ sample. The one week chapter is the chapter on events as the code is pretty complicated and the explanation lacking. In summary, this is a great book for learning COM and then a great reference book.

Rating:
Summary: Great book!
Review: This book provides a very good basic of the concepts and teaches step-by-step guide on how to program COM+ programs from beginning till end. A must-read for all who knows C++ and wish to learn up COM and COM+.