C++ for VB Programmers

Rating:
Summary: Ok intro to c++, only partially comes through on its promise
Review: If you know nothing about c++, but are an astute VB programmer, this book will give you a decent intro to C++. Be forewarned! This book is only marginally better at explaining strings than anything else out there (At least you get a direction to go in though), so if you need a C++ component tomorrow that can return strings, you are out of luck. If you just need to do numeric stuff, it is fine.

Rating:
Summary: Pretty decent
Review: This book appears to be the first of its kind. Not a bad job either. If you are an advanced VB programmer looking to add a second language to your skills, this book is a good place to begin.

Rating:
Summary: BUY the book, READ it, and KEEP it around, but be warned...
Review: This book is must for VB programmers who want to extend the functionality of their projects. For the most part, the book is technically sound and logically organized. The formatting of code, however, left something to be desired, as it was often awkward/inconsistent in the spacing and indentation of code, and it was often difficult to see where one function/property ended and another one began. The thing is, it was fine in some places, yet horrendous in others.

If you can put aside the cosmetic shortcomings, then this book has a lot to offer. The topics discussed could easily fit into two or three volumes, but this book is fairly "to-the-point" and gets the job done in one. The author's style is entertaining and informative, and it is written like he is speaking directly to you. The size of the book is not intimidating, and the material is easy to digest in a relatively short time (my company wanted to use a third-party C/C++ library which VB could not directly use, so I had to build a proprietary ActiveX COM object with methods, properties, events, etc. -- having had no prior C/C++ experience, I successfully completed this task within 2 weeks while reading the book). For that, this book was a life-saver!

The author will get you started on developing VC++ components for your VB projects, but it's up to you to learn more (he references further reading materials in several of his chapters). It is also a decent reference book once you've read it over and implemented some of the techniques and worked through some projects.

If you have any prior C++ experience, you can jump straight to Chapters 9-10 to learn about writing VB-accessible DLLs, and you'll quickly start learning about ATL by Chapters 11-12. Appendix B (on BSTRs) is also a very useful, and ties in tightly with Chapter 12. If you don't read anything else in this book, then at least read these!

Now the bad part: There are minor technical flaws from time to time, but most seasoned VB developers will catch these and identify them as typos. As of this writing, the publisher's website...does not have any corrections listed for the book, but I have sent them a list of about 71 cosmetic updates, about 20 technical issues, and editorial comments for almost all chapters. The downloadable code has many discrepancies from the printed version, which may be an issue if you're comparing notes. Most projects can be built from scratch from listings in the book alone, but the author often neglects to mention specific settings/actions required at compile-time to make things work (e.g., the /MT or /MD flags to compile a multi-threading application). Also, the sample VB client applications lack design-time attributes, so you end up with pages of VB code, and no idea what controls/menus to add (other than trying to figure it out from the code). With one project, in Chapter 10, you *must* download the code from the website since it contains required files, and many attributes which aren't described in the book. The problem is, the code looks different from what is published. But, trying to build the project from scratch from the book alone will drive you nuts! The conceptual explanations on what the code is doing is fairly good, however. It's just annoying when you want to practice building a component (rather than loading up provided code), and meeting a brick wall over and over!

The provided CD-ROM should have provided the printed code (exactly as printed), rather than requiring the reader to download it from the website. The ZIP file I downloaded from the publisher contained most of the code that was in the book, but for the projects where it mattered (Chapters 10 and 12), it was quite different from the published code. For other chapters, having the code would not have made a great difference since the listings were short and easy enough to type in. In some cases (Chapter 8, p. 139 and 144), the author claimed that unprinted code was available for download, but the projects he described were not actually included in the ZIP file. This was also the case for Appendix B (p. 326).

Despite some of the annoyances I found, I would still buy and read this book over again. Don't use it to learn C++, but to augment your VB skills using C++. If you want to learn C++ properly, I recommend Beginning Visual C++ 6, by Ivor Horton (Wrox, 1998).

Rating:
Summary: BUY the book, READ it, and KEEP it around, but be warned...
Review: This book is must for VB programmers who want to extend the functionality of their projects. For the most part, the book is technically sound and logically organized. The formatting of code, however, left something to be desired, as it was often awkward/inconsistent in the spacing and indentation of code, and it was often difficult to see where one function/property ended and another one began. The thing is, it was fine in some places, yet horrendous in others.

If you can put aside the cosmetic shortcomings, then this book has a lot to offer. The topics discussed could easily fit into two or three volumes, but this book is fairly "to-the-point" and gets the job done in one. The author's style is entertaining and informative, and it is written like he is speaking directly to you. The size of the book is not intimidating, and the material is easy to digest in a relatively short time (my company wanted to use a third-party C/C++ library which VB could not directly use, so I had to build a proprietary ActiveX COM object with methods, properties, events, etc. -- having had no prior C/C++ experience, I successfully completed this task within 2 weeks while reading the book). For that, this book was a life-saver!

The author will get you started on developing VC++ components for your VB projects, but it's up to you to learn more (he references further reading materials in several of his chapters). It is also a decent reference book once you've read it over and implemented some of the techniques and worked through some projects.

If you have any prior C++ experience, you can jump straight to Chapters 9-10 to learn about writing VB-accessible DLLs, and you'll quickly start learning about ATL by Chapters 11-12. Appendix B (on BSTRs) is also a very useful, and ties in tightly with Chapter 12. If you don't read anything else in this book, then at least read these!

Now the bad part: There are minor technical flaws from time to time, but most seasoned VB developers will catch these and identify them as typos. As of this writing, the publisher's website...does not have any corrections listed for the book, but I have sent them a list of about 71 cosmetic updates, about 20 technical issues, and editorial comments for almost all chapters. The downloadable code has many discrepancies from the printed version, which may be an issue if you're comparing notes. Most projects can be built from scratch from listings in the book alone, but the author often neglects to mention specific settings/actions required at compile-time to make things work (e.g., the /MT or /MD flags to compile a multi-threading application). Also, the sample VB client applications lack design-time attributes, so you end up with pages of VB code, and no idea what controls/menus to add (other than trying to figure it out from the code). With one project, in Chapter 10, you *must* download the code from the website since it contains required files, and many attributes which aren't described in the book. The problem is, the code looks different from what is published. But, trying to build the project from scratch from the book alone will drive you nuts! The conceptual explanations on what the code is doing is fairly good, however. It's just annoying when you want to practice building a component (rather than loading up provided code), and meeting a brick wall over and over!

The provided CD-ROM should have provided the printed code (exactly as printed), rather than requiring the reader to download it from the website. The ZIP file I downloaded from the publisher contained most of the code that was in the book, but for the projects where it mattered (Chapters 10 and 12), it was quite different from the published code. For other chapters, having the code would not have made a great difference since the listings were short and easy enough to type in. In some cases (Chapter 8, p. 139 and 144), the author claimed that unprinted code was available for download, but the projects he described were not actually included in the ZIP file. This was also the case for Appendix B (p. 326).

Despite some of the annoyances I found, I would still buy and read this book over again. Don't use it to learn C++, but to augment your VB skills using C++. If you want to learn C++ properly, I recommend Beginning Visual C++ 6, by Ivor Horton (Wrox, 1998).

Rating:
Summary: Useful if you already know some C++
Review: This is actually 2 books in one: the first part is a very basic C++ tutorial, while the second teaches you how to write C++ extentions to VB applications (dlls and COM objects). The second part deserves 5 stars while the first deserves 1 star.

I had to write some VB-friendly dlls and COM objects to speed up a large VB application. For this limited and "focused" need, the 2nd part was VERY useful and right to the point. Excellent.

As a book for learning C++, it's definately not a good choice, and I was rather dissapointed. It teaches some bad (and weird) programming habits and, worst of all, totally ignores all the modern features that actually make C++ a useful language (like the C++ Standard Library). It's not only not useful, but could even be harmful.

I strongly recommend you get yourself another book to learn C++ (like C++ Primer, C++ In Action or Tinking In C++) and only then read the second part of C++ for VB programmers.

PS. Make sure you also read all of the "C++ for VB" articles from Bruce McKinney. The first is included withthe cdrom, you'll find the rest's at Bruce's website.

Rating:
Summary: Useful if you already know some C++
Review: This is actually 2 books in one: the first part is a very basic C++ tutorial, while the second teaches you how to write C++ extentions to VB applications (dlls and COM objects). The second part deserves 5 stars while the first deserves 1 star.

I had to write some VB-friendly dlls and COM objects to speed up a large VB application. For this limited and "focused" need, the 2nd part was VERY useful and right to the point. Excellent.

As a book for learning C++, it's definately not a good choice, and I was rather dissapointed. It teaches some bad (and weird) programming habits and, worst of all, totally ignores all the modern features that actually make C++ a useful language (like the C++ Standard Library). It's not only not useful, but could even be harmful.

I strongly recommend you get yourself another book to learn C++ (like C++ Primer, C++ In Action or Tinking In C++) and only then read the second part of C++ for VB programmers.

PS. Make sure you also read all of the "C++ for VB" articles from Bruce McKinney. The first is included withthe cdrom, you'll find the rest's at Bruce's website.

Rating:
Summary: The best book for vb programmers
Review: This is the best book i have ever bought !. jonathan, expose for us, the world of c++ from the point of view of a vb programmers and he's doing it with lots of humor and deep understanding of how to teach and how to make his points. as a vb programmer for over 4 years, i can tell that this book is a must. finaly we can understand all the dirthy work that vb makes for us behind the scene, making things so transparent. and i know from my expirience that a good vb programmer whants to dig inside and find out all those things. again, the best thing for my opinion in this book is, jonathan's way to deliver the material. i know that i'll buy just any book that this writer publish because he is the best !!!. thank you jonathan.