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Book Review
Developing Professional Applications for Windows 95 & NT by Brain & Lovette
Recommended
ISBN: 0 13 616343 2       Publisher: Prentice Hall       Pages: 858pp+CD       Price: £29-99
Categories:   beginner's c++     MS Windows     microsoft    
Reviewed by Edward Crosby in C Vu 10-4 (May 1998)
This is an introductory book into programming with the MFC classes. It starts with an introduction to the fundamental concepts and theory behind the MFC and goes on to examine the most popular MFC classes such as dialogues, list and edit controls and includes extensive coverage of the Windows drawing model. Later on the book discusses the more professional features that turn an ordinary application into a polished product, e.g. DDX, DDV, splash screens, pop-up menus, etc. The more advanced MFC classes such as databases, OLE and thread support are discussed, but only briefly and it is this that makes the book suitable as an introduction but not for the more experienced.

The book's authors both have teaching experience and this clearly comes across in the style of the book. It is clear, readable and with the right depth of understanding to make the reader comfortable and follow the logical progression. It is not a 'teach yourself' C++ book, although an appendix adequately covers this topic for the purposes of the book. This book is only for developers with MS Visual C++. The bulk of this book would be wasted on anyone with Borland's development tools. The reason for this is that the book is not just about MFC but also has wide coverage of how to use the development tools and wizards included in MS VC++.

For anyone with some C/C++ experience and with MS VC++ wishing to have an introduction to the MFC then this book is recommended.

Other Authors with the same surname

Brain
Using Windows NT by Marshall Brain & Kelly Campbell  (Reviewed Sep 1994)
Win32 System Services: The Heart of Windows NT by Marshall Brain [Recommended]  (Reviewed May 1995)
Windows NT Administration by Marshall Brain & S Woodward [Recommended]  (Reviewed Sep 1994)
Windows NT Programming (An Introduction Using C++) by Marshall Brain & Kelly Campbell  (Reviewed May 1994)

Last Update - 13 May 2001.

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