Delphi Com Programming

Just a quick note to say this is a super book. A great, lucid introduction to COM. The section on Istreams and structured files was super useful. If you are ever going to use COM at all, this book is a must

Very well structured and complete. It has been really helpful to several Delphi developers I know, which had little or no experience with COM. With this book in your hands you will learn not only "how", but also "why". It covers many concepts and explanations that usually Delphi programmers ignore or don't know. I particularly liked the DCOM topics. The examples are very good and well-chosen too. A good job, for sure...

Don't think what version of Delphi this book was written for, I read this book and I found it very organized with a very good language, this book will guide you from a-z in a good discussion & details for learning and implementing COM programming in Delphi (3-5), let say the kick of is using the Interface in Delphi through Programming the Windows Shell Extension. So, if you are a Delphi programmer doesn't waste your time looking for another book, just buy it.

This is not your typical 1200 page Delphi biceps-builder. This book is compact, well written and to the point. No filler, just meat. The chapters develop each topic with very good examples that illustrate COM and some good coding practices to boot. One caveat is that he does not always give each step if your working through the examples so you may have to do a little detective work to find out how a variable or interface showed up where it did. Take heart though, all the code can be downloaded"~ from the New Riders web site and the examples run fine. He also affords you the curtsey of compiling the examples for you so you can run them even if you don't have the latest version of Delphi. The book can be used equally well with Delphi 3 through 5."~ server by the second chapter!"~ done does not implement this interface directly. It is much more practical to let COM do the marshaling for you.

I'm always suspicious of a book from an author I hadn't heard of before and ordering it online didn't help. Within the first couple of pages I was sure I had bought a rehash of everything I had read about COM in so many other books during the last yearand a half. Seeing the many pages of printed code, while I 'fan previewed' the book convinced me that this was the 'filler' of a lightweight. But this was not so. By page 50 Mr. Harmon was clearly taking me places I hadn't been and by the end of the third chapter, I knew that this book would fit nicely between Danny Thorpe and Ray Konopka on my programmers bookshelf.Eric explains COM from a perspective familiar to a Delphi programmer and doesn't waste time teaching OOP 101 as so many other books of the genre. He starts each new area on friendly turf to a typical delphi programmer, creates a framwork, and builds on that structure to explain rather complex concepts quickly and effectively. I found his method of teaching comprehensive and thorough - yet demanding. If you aren't already reasonably comfortable with OOP than you still have a little more homework to do before you move onto COM. But it'll be here when you are. Even a general understanding of interfaces, com and dcom would be advisable though though he does review the basics briefly. But then he quickly moves through interfaces and drills down into levels that I hadn't encountered and I'm not yet at page 100. About a third of the way through chapter three and I knew I was on the clock - that this book would pay for itself in no time.I must admit that I am only into Chapter 5 now but did catch a peek of all to come. If you are a reasonably seasoned programmer and want to move on to COM with the rest of the Windows programming community, this is how you do it. Simply start reading at page one, do every example in the book as you go along, sometime before the appendix you will have your COM/DCOM wings. The embedded source code is there because it has to be there. Nearly every line is referenced in the narrative and the text depends on it. If you already have programmed some COM/DCOM experience as I had, you may still find the read worthwhile. I must caution that the book is exceptionally dry and without witticisms or amusing anecdotes. Mr. Harmon is down to business and makes no effect to entertain the anyone that I can tell. You won't even find a jab at Microsoft here. But if you want to learn COM/DCOM as a Delphi programmer, you have come to the right place. You can always go out to the club when you're done.