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The book concentrates upon the two very hot topics in current development--database and Internet. The book covers, in detail, topics such as ADO data binding, a subject that you usually just see a brief commentary on in many C++ books. It also explores Internet development with some examples, good examples. In the last two chapters the author explores how to build a help file and how to package your application in most developers' interest.

The book is divided into five parts, including an appendix section. The first part of the book is a simple introduction to Visual C++; including a chapter about building a basic application and only one example about building a dialogue based application. There are several shortcomings in this book. After only a few instructions on how use the wizard to create the dialogue based application the author jumps into inserting an ActiveX Component. There is only one example on creating a Single document application. There is just a short series of wizard instructions, nothing about how to use the class wizard. There is not one example or a simple discussion about how to create and use Multiple document applications. Parts two and three concentrate upon developing database and Internet applications. Unlike many Visual C++ Books this book comes without a CD. Therefore, if you want the source code you have to download it from the Internet. The total size of the zipped code is over 40 MB; this will take a normal modem at least four hours. Over 30 MB of the 40 MB Code is Compiler generated code, some of which your compiler will generate for you when you compile each project. There are some errors in this code that a novice will find very difficult to correct. Throughout pages 233-320 the author discusses HTML and JavaScript, with over 80 pages of unnecessary material to learn about Visual C++ 6.

Over all I think the book has failed to achieve its main objective of teaching a novice to use Visual C++ 6. I think the title should be Database and Internet Programming using Visual C++ 6.