Professional Dcom Application Development

Rating:
Summary: quite a mouth full.
Review: If you are the kind of people who wish to download source code as it first appears on the web and if you are the kind of people in a hurry to get into the act with all the issues as soon as possible, then this book is for you.

The author have not stopped with explaining COM, DCOM and all other technologies as a toolkit. He has shown how to put them all to use in building real solutions to real problem. I liked the way he had simulated the scenario when you face trouble, when you start building systems that stretch over an entire enterprise, and how things get more complicated, and how difficult it become to deliver flexible, reliable and timely solutions.

If you are starting a new project which involves C++, ATL, COM, DCOM and other technologies like MTS, MSMQ and IIS, and if you use services of ADO, then with this book you are already there into the next phase of your project.

I would have given a four star if this book have not dealt with some of the topics which I think it is premature to implement in the industry when the services are actually in their beta release.

Rating:
Summary: Hello? ... DCOM is no more.
Review: Micro$oft is famous for its ability to push out new development technologies. The reason behind this planned obsolesence is obvious, every time they come out with something new people will have to open their wallets to "keep up."

DCOM is just another disposable technology. As such, it was a complete failure; one that the marketing folks at M$ have tried to bury as quickly as possible under an avalanche of .NET hype.

DCOM was hard to port because, like COM, it is based on a binary standard (i.e. a standard that changes when you leave x86 and go to 64-bit RISC). Not only that, but DCOM doesn't support distributed transactions. Worst of all, DCOM is a very, very complicated technology to use. Three strikes... YOU'RE OUT!

The half-wit MBAs at Micro$oft realized their mistake and have abandoned DCOM, leaving it forever in the backwaters where the only record of its sorry existence are stupid books like this.

I have no idea why someone would want to buy this book. Folks, this is a dead technology. It is no more. It is an ex-techology. If you buy this book, you are lying to yourself. This book will sit an gather dust, unless you can find more productive uses for it...like burning it to stay warm.

Rating:
Summary: Should really be called "Win32 Enterprise Primer"
Review: The title of this book is deceiving. Writing enterprise software for Win32 involves a lot of COM based technology. This book is an excellent introduction for all these technologies provided that the person already has some fundamental knowledge of basic COM (Hence the "Professional" in the title). I have not seen a better book out there that both addresses the technologies AND has working samples of those technologies. Most COM/DCOM/COM+ books out there today start with rehashes of Dale Rogerson's Inside COM book... I am tired of seeing all the books out there that has the exact same explanation of connection points, the exact explanation of IUnknown, and basically the exact same 3 introductory chapters!. Learning COM is a two-pronged process. First, you must be able to get comfortable with the technology (hence, Rogerson's book), then you have to learn the services built around the technology (This book does that!). I can see why this book got such poor reviews, because those people reading the book were not ready for the onslaught of information in this book (believe me, there's more useful information in these 400+ pages than there is in most 600-1000+ page COMeverything books).

Rating:
Summary: Interesting book
Review: This book is a "professional" Dcom book and it could be very difficult for COM beginners. The book touched many advanced features with practical examples that can not be found in other COM/DCOM books. One must have at least intermediate level knowledge before opening this book. That is why I only read the book after I bought the book one year later. Many topics it introduced can be applied to industry directly. However, I sometimes found myself could not make some components right by following author's instructions, although the examples from the wrox download site work just fine.

Rating:
Summary: tedious
Review: This guide gets a bit too wordy with anecdotal comments. I have little patience when I am trying to learn a new form of development. I would have preferred that the author got to the point with fewer words. Also, I would prefer that the samples be more practical/predictable. This way, I can focus on DCOM instead of trying to determine what else is new about a code fragment. Case in point; kidnapper/ransom transaction application versus traditional bank money transfer app.