Synopsis
Professional DCOM Application Development is for experienced C++ programmers who have heard that Microsoft may be getting there at last, and want to get up to speed. It is for people in a hurry, who wish to get to grips with all the issues involved as quickly as possible. These are the kind of people who are not afraid to get their hands dirty, and will leap into the sample code before they're half way through the chapter. To be frank, they are probably the sort of people who download the sample code when it first appears on the Wrox Press site, before the book even hits the bookstores. There is currently no one resource that provides this sort of information. The general approach seems to be to teach people how to use DCOM as a technology for distributing clever ActiveX controls to a wide audience. However, Microsoft's goal is somewhat broader than that, and the major thrust of NT5 is to make the OS a platform for building serious enterprise-wide applications. We are moving away from the desktop into back-office territory here." Who is this Book for? Experienced C++ Programmers who've had some exposure to COM or CORBA. Those Network developers that have understood DCOM through building small ActiveX controls who now want to push that interest into real enterprise -wide applications.
From the Author
Not just another COM/DCOM bookLet’s start by getting one thing straight. "Professional DCOM Application Development" isn’t just another COM/DCOM book. When I sat down to write this book, I wasn’t interested in selling the idea of distributed components – there are plenty of books that do that already. And I didn’t really want to waste valuable space explaining the underlying theory of COM (or indeed ATL) – there are plenty of excellent books that do that, too.
No, what I really wanted to do was move on and explore the $64000 question: can we construct our entire back-office around Windows NT? Does Windows NT have the technological basis to support all of our potential applications?
Did I say $64000? Make that $64 billion.
Why DCOM, though? Well, you can’t explore Microsoft’s back-office without encountering COM (their Component Object Model) pretty early on, and if you’re interested in real, grown-up, distributed systems, then you’re bound to come across Distributed COM, or DCOM. DCOM is very much the engine that powers Microsoft’s back-office war machine.
So in the book, I take an in-depth practical look at how we can build real, grown-up, distributed systems using all the technologies based around DCOM, from pure DCOM through to MTS and MSMQ, with side orders of Active Directory, Clusters and MMC.
Oh, and what was the answer to my original question? Does Windows NT have the technological basis to support all of our potential applications?
Well, maybe. Just maybe. But perhaps you’d better read the book and make your own mind up.
