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C++ Windows NT Programming by Mark Andrews Recommended |
| ISBN: 1-55828-300-5 Publisher: M&T Books Pages: 576pp+disk Price: £36-50 |
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| Categories: MS Windows advanced c++ microsoft |
| Reviewed by Ian Cargill in C Vu 8-5 (Jul 1996) |
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NT is rapidly gaining ground in the market-
place, becoming the platform of choice for many corporate sites. Although
there are hundreds of books on programming for C++ and/or
Windows, very few are aimed specifically at Windows NT . This
book is very specifically about programming in C++ for Windows
NT and is one of the few really good books on the subject.
Note that it is a book which teaches you how to use C++ for
programming under Windows NT , not an introduction to
C++. You don't need to be a C++expert, but will need to
have a reasonable knowledge of C++.
It starts off with three introductory chapters which give overviews of the
Windows NT operating system, the Win32 SDK
and the Visual C++ compiler. The OS
chapter is a reasonable introduction to Win NT from
a programmer's point of view. The SDK chapter is perhaps
slightly misnamed. It is really more about pro-gramming for Win32 systems
than the actual SDK functions. The Visual
C++ chapter started off ominously with screen shots of Visual
C++ and descriptions of AppWizards and things. Why, I do not know. All
of this is covered in much better detail in the Visual
C++ manuals and its inclusion here is quite unnecessary. I'm not
convinced the MFC material is necessary either, but I won't
get too upset about it.
After these introductions, the book begins to cover topics in earnest, with
a chapter each on DLL S for NT , Console
Windows, Threads and Processes, Networking, Pipes, Sockets and Graphics. The
chapters are well written and give a solid coverage of each topic. The author
has avoided the common trap of stuffing the book with code at the expense of
expository text. The code is where it should be; on the accompanying code
disc. The only slight drawback to the book is that the code is written using
Visual C++ and MFC . (Not a criticism - it has to
use something.) Readers with other development systems will have to do a
little 'translating' in places, but the book is still well worth reading.
In summary, I think C++ Windows NT Programming
is well written and contains a lot of useful material. If you are thinking of
programming for Windows NT , I would recommend taking a look
at this book.
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