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Essential COM (Paperback)

by Don Box (Author)

4.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (58 customer reviews)

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Product details

Paperback: 464 pages
Publisher: Addison Wesley (2 Feb 1998)
Language English
ISBN-10: 0201634465
ISBN-13: 978-0201634464
Product Dimensions: 23 x 18.8 x 2.6 cm

Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (58 customer reviews)

Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 212,700 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)
Popular in this category:
#3 in Books > Computing & Internet > Microsoft Windows > Programming > COM & DCOM

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Product Description

Written by a leading COM authority, this unique book reveals the essence of COM, helping developers to truly understand the why, not just the how, of COM. Understanding the motivation for the design of COM and its distributed aspects is critical for developers who wish to go beyond simplistic applications of COM and become truly effective COM programmers, and to stay current with extensions, such as Microsoft Transaction Server and COM+. Box examines COM from the perspective of a C++ developer, offering a familiar frame of reference to ease you into the topic.

From the Author

About My Book...
My lifestory (or at least the COM aspects of it) will finally make it into print this year. My sincere thanks to everyone who has been patiently awaiting this book. You can surf to my book's web page (http://www.develop.com/dbox/combook) for a table of contents and other relevant information.

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	63% buy the item featured on this page: Essential COM 4.2 out of 5 stars (58)
	19% buy Inside COM 4.3 out of 5 stars (52)
	7% buy Developer's Workshop to COM and ATL 3.0 5.0 out of 5 stars (9)
	5% buy ATL Internals: Working with ATL 8 (Addison-Wesley Object Technology) 5.0 out of 5 stars (1) �36.44

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Customer Reviews

58 Reviews

5 star:		(32)
4 star:		(11)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(0)

Average Customer Review

4.2 out of 5 stars (58 customer reviews)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Should have been titled "COM for C++ Developers", 11 Mar 1999

By A Customer

For a book on the topic of COM (a language-independent binary standard for component software development), Essential COM is incredibly biased towards C++ developers. As a VB5/6 and Delphi developer, after about seventy-five pages I realized that this book was a waste of my time. I recommend that the author look to books like Design Patterns to understand how to present topics in a more language-independent way. This might be a good book for C++ developers, but anyone else seeking a thorough understanding of COM (without suffering through an excruciating history of the C++ shortcomings that led to the development of COM in the first place) should look elsewhere.

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5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Can't write low-level COM without it, 24 Oct 2001

By A Customer

If you write low-level COM then this is the book to read. The GIT, Free Threaded Marshaller, custom marshalling, threading are covered. It is one of two books I refer to regularly when doing advanced COM (ATL Internals being the other).

Slightly out of date with the introduction of Windows 2000, but there is no better more upto date book. This omission can be filled in by reading "Windows 2000 Brings Significant Refinements to the COM(+) Programming Model" in May 1999 MSJ on the Microsoft web site.

As an introduction to COM it is poor. For VB6ers it is pointless, strictly for VC++6 programmers wanting to get a good understanding of COM in my opinion.

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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Just What I wanted !, 15 Feb 1999

By A Customer

Starting from the progressive definition of an informal set of requirements for modular software architectures, the first chapter of Essential COM highlights how, by itself, the C++ language is not capable of satisfying many of them, even when associated with DLLs. Several possible design alternatives are then evaluated, and the final decision leads to the rough engineering of COM. This is perhaps the most vaporware-free introduction to the subject I have ever read because it explains through facts and not conjecture how and why the C++ object model maps well to COM... As the book proceeds, more and more room is given to complex technical issues and useful (while not trivial) COM programming idioms, such as tear-off interfaces for saving memory as the number of interfaces climbs significantly but not all of them happen to be constantly in use. In all cases the solutions make use of only the raw COM API and interfaces at the C++ level. Neither the theory, nor any of the numerous code snippets sprinkled throughout in the book, mention high-level frameworks such as ATL or MFC. The dissertation on multithreading issues and marshaling are very detailed and betray the vast experience of the author in the implementation of nontrivial COM systems.

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Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Still incredibly useful
.NET may be the new big thing but COM is most likely here to stay. It's worth pointing out, as another reviewer did, that . Read more

Published on 11 Nov 2003 by J. Hotchkiss

4.0 out of 5 stars Good Book many usefull bits for advanced programmers.
Probably should be on every COM programmers library and well written.

Published on 5 Sep 2001

2.0 out of 5 stars Not worth such high praise in my opinion.
Weak writing style, incomplete explenations, not enough code in book, some good bits in book and in software and if not for the existance of ATL it may be worth slightly more... Read more

Published on 5 Sep 2001

4.0 out of 5 stars Great book
This is a very good book, highly recommended for people wanting to learn COM. However, it does assume a reasonable knowledge of C++ so if you don't have this amount of knowledge,... Read more

Published on 6 Aug 2001 by Loopy

5.0 out of 5 stars Best COM Book
I had been to COM programming 2 years back.This is the best book for all serious COM programmers. I purchased this book 2 years back and still love to read it.

Published on 4 Jul 2001

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent book for intermediate level Com Developers
Its a superb book for knowing everything in COM,but I feel it requires you to have intermediate knowledge of COM.Its one of the best bargain I had in Years. Read more

Published on 14 Jan 2000

5.0 out of 5 stars The first chapter worth the price of the book
I spend a few months programming COM using ATL and MFC and still didn't fully understand why we want it. This book tells me why in 30 minutes. Best COM book available.

Published on 19 Aug 1999

5.0 out of 5 stars This is a must have for COM developers
I met Don Box (the author) at the Microsoft Global Summit in New Orleans in 1998 and was impressed. It was interesting to see Microsoft personnel listening and learning from an... Read more

Published on 8 Aug 1999

5.0 out of 5 stars Yes! Definitely the best book on COM I read.
In a world full of poorly written books about COM this book is really something else. In just a few hundred pages (about 400) Don Box manages to cover all basic aspects of COM... Read more

Published on 4 Aug 1999

3.0 out of 5 stars Excellent book for studying COM
This book has all the necessary things explained from the roots

Published on 30 Jul 1999

› See all 58 customer reviews...

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