No Steps at all
I've bought most of the MS Visual C++ books. This is the worst of all. If you are new to programming, many of the chapters you won't know what it is talking about.
Rushed, mangled, and a waste of money
This book is a bunch of rushed ideas and statements( no thought), and the
whole book is in rushed jibber-jabber. They keep indicating that you will
learn this later, and that. Later comes and you never learn it. It is quite amazing to me how they could have fill the many pages (600+) of the book with filibuster garggle. Do not buy this book. You won't be able to pace yourself and follow along (it's a disorganized mess), and you will not learn anything, and will waste your money. Whoever wrote this book should go to jail for content faud. End of story.
Good other Book
This book seems to be exactly a C++ for Microsoft software step by step. If you do not understand the computer program, expect to want a teach yourself book for the same Visual C++. However, this book starts you off writing a program in the start of the book. I found other books that expect one to read the whole book before you even touch the software. This book seems to be split between a lesson and a manual, but more like the manual only that could come with the software from Microsoft Press. This book is typical of Microsoft because it is as if it says just write our Visual C++, never mind other concepts, only you need the Microsoft way as long as it works with this complier and that is all you really need to know. This book is all about Microsoft and it's world of Windows software.
Not much to it......
I agree with a previous reviewer who said that the authors didn't pay much attention to who the target audience was for this book.
It starts off like a C++ book, then you have some .NET stuff thrown in (ofcourse, you are not told why you need them, its like "This is a .NET book, and there has to be some .NET material!!"). I have been programming in C++ for quite long, and I thought I could progress to .NET with this one. I was wrong. The book doesnt even take time off to explain what "Managed" C++ is all about. There are some nuggets of info here and there, but its so disorganised, I dont think they will benefit anyone.
Good book for intermediate C++ & new to .NET
Step by Step is a good description of what this book is about. While it would be very helpful to have some prior C++ experience, you could probably just have a copy of .NET and this book, and get alot out of it. However, if you are experienced in Visual C++.NET, this book would be of little use. It would be impossible to comprehensively cover all of the topics addressed in this book in it's < 600 pages, but it gives, in my opinion, and great introduction to some of C++.NET's features. I found the section on ADO.NET especially helpful, and was able to write some fine database mgt. software for my personal use. This book also gives a solid introduction to Windows Forms programming as well as to exception handling in .NET. I think some of the longer reviews for this book are over done. It would be very easy for a knowlegdeable .NET developer to sharpshoot was is wrong with it. I am glad I didn't listen to them before I bought this book. It was worth every penny.
