Bibliography

Eddon, Guy, and Henry Eddon. Inside Distributed COM. Redmond, Wash.: Microsoft Press, 1998.

This is the classic on Distributed COM (DCOM) and is a pretty good introduction to COM in general. For situations in which it is important to have transparent location independence for the server, DCOM or remote procedure calls (RPC) are the best options. DCOM is somewhat easier to implement, and having Inside Distributed COM available will make the learning process much easier. Beyond what is commonly considered DCOM topics, the book also includes useful coverage of Microsoft Transaction Server and the upcoming COM+ technology.

Flanagan, David. JavaScript: The Definitive Guide . Sebastopol, Calif.: O'Reilly & Associates, 1998.

If you need to use JavaScript and you don't know where to start, JavaScript: The Definitive Guide is a good place to look. Part II of this book discusses in detail the client-side JavaScript in the browsersomething I covered briefly in Chapter 9.

Microsoft Corporation. Microsoft Developer Network. Redmond, Wash.: Microsoft, 1999.

No matter what other resource materials you have available, the Microsoft Developer Network (MSDN) is essential. Especially when you need to have the latest information about new technologies, nothing can beat the quarterly library updates on CD. Of course, much of the same information is available on line at the MSDN Web site ( http://msdn.microsoft.com ), but having the CDs makes finding the information more convenient . The searching capabilities alone can justify the cost of the MSDN Library. Even if you have many of the resources in hard copy format (as I do), finding exactly what you need is ever so much easier with the MSDN CDs.

Microsoft Corporation. Microsoft Internet Information Server Resource Kit . Redmond, Wash.: Microsoft Press, 1998.

Although this book covers IIS only through version 4, it is the most recent book of its kind available. The MSDN documentation covers most of the differences between IIS 4 and IIS 5, allowing you to use this book in conjunction with the more recent MSDN coverage of IIS. Microsoft Internet Information Server Resource Kit is intended for system administrators rather than developers, but even developers will likely need to administer their own development IIS system.

Microsoft Corporation. Microsoft ODBC 3.0 Software Development Kit and Programmer's Reference, Volume 2. Redmond, Wash.: Microsoft Press, 1997.

This book is another essential bit of documentation that any programmer should have. Even if you intend to use other data access methods , such as ADO, in many cases ADO calls into an ODBC driver. If, like me, you need to call the ODBC API directly, the ODBC 3.0 Software Development Kit and Programmer's Reference is a must-have .

Evans, Nicholas D., Ken Miller, and Ken Spencer. Programming Microsoft Visual InterDev 6.0 . Redmond, Wash.: Microsoft Press, 1999.

Very much an introductory book, Programming Microsoft Visual InterDev 6.0 focuses on using Microsoft Visual InterDev as it was intended to be used. If you have read this book, you probably noticed that I don't use Visual InterDev in the way Evans et al. describe. Prior to Visual InterDev, I used a simple text editor to edit my ASP files. I moved to Visual InterDev as a text editor only because of the syntax color coding. If you want to use Visual InterDev to its full potential, this is the book for you. Even if you are like me and use Visual InterDev as only a text editor, the book offers many tips and tricks that you will find useful.

Murray, James D., and Debby Russell. Windows NT Event Logging . Sebastopol, Calif.: O'Reilly & Associates, 1998.

This book is really aimed at administrators, but the relatively short section for programmers is quite helpful. Event logging is a great deal more complex than you might initially think, and this book helps you cut through that complexity.

Musciano, Chuck, and Bill Kennedy. HTML: The Definitive Guide, 3d ed. Sebastopol, Calif.: O'Reilly & Associates, 1998.

When I went to review this book, I couldn't find it in the stack of books that I had set aside for this bibliography. The reason is simple: I'd needed it earlier and it was at the top of the stack on my desk. I originally purchased the first edition and currently have the third edition. (Thanks, Sue!) I primarily use the book as a reference. My only disappointment with the third edition is the authors chose to remove the information on every element reference that clearly showed browser dependencies.

Napper, Lewis. WinSock 2.0 . Foster City, Calif.: IDG Books Worldwide, 1997.

I had hoped that my inclusion of this book would spur a number of people to purchase it, but according to Amazon.com (and several postings on WinSock UseNet news groups), WinSock 2.0 is out of stock and unavailable. That is a shame. You can't have mine! This is one of only a couple of good books on WinSock. The fact that I own this one is due more to relative cost than to any special merit of this book over the others. Having purchased WinSock 2.0, I never had any need to purchase another WinSock resource. This book does contain a bit too much coverage of older WinSock features that make more sense in the 16-bit world than in the 32-bit world, but it is still one of those books I wish you could get your hands on.

Okuntseff, Nik. Windows NT Security: Programming Easy-to-Use Security Options. Lawrence, Kans.: R & D Books, 1997.

This is a less-than-easy-to-read book about a less-than -easy-to-use feature of Microsoft Windows 2000. That said, I have not found a better source for this information, including the MSDN documentation. Security is not my favorite feature of Windows 2000, but when I am presented with a security- related problem, this is the book I will pick up.

Reilly, Douglas J. Win32 Client/Server Developer's Guide . Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, 1996.

What can I say about this book? Much of what I discussed in Win32 Client/Server Developer's Guide is still valid today. This book did not adequately cover developing server-side applications. In fact, it did not cover server-side applications at all. However, several parts of this book still make owning it worthwhile.

First the book describes a DLL-based, protocol-independent , client-side communication toolkit. I have called this toolkit from many different programming languages, and it is still in production. This allows one of my applications to decide at run time whether to use named pipes or WinSock.

Second this book covers remote procedure calls (RPC). While much attention these days is paid to Distributed COM rather than RPC, RPC can still be a valuable tool.

Solomon, David A. Inside Windows NT, 2d ed. Redmond, Wash.: Microsoft Press, 1998.

This book is one of those essential books for folks interested in serious Windows 2000/NT development. Because of its date of publication, the book refers to Windows NT 5 rather than Windows 2000, and some features of what was known as Windows NT 5 when this book was publishedfor example, 64-bit Alpha supporthave been cut from the final product. More than technical details, Inside Windows NT gives you an insider's view of Windows 2000/NT. Sometimes understanding these perspectives can help foster a greater understanding of the operating system as a whole.

Soukup, Ron, and Kalen Delaney. Inside Microsoft SQL Server 7.0 . Redmond, Wash.: Microsoft Press, 1999.

Even experienced SQL Server administrators and programmers will have this book by their sides. While it is not in a reference format and it omits coverage of many of the tools included with SQL Server 7.0, this book is a worthwhile read for the historical context it gives to SQL Server and for the low-level insights it offers into what makes SQL Server tick. I have spent only a little time with this volume, but based on the quality of Ron Soukup's original volume, I am looking forward to reading more of the current edition.

If you can have only a single book on SQL Server, you might be better off with one of the books that is oriented a bit more toward providing a reference tool for SQL Server. The purpose of Inside Microsoft SQL Server 7.0 is different, and it in no way attempts to duplicate the online documentation. But if your library has room for a couple of books on SQL Server, I would certainly recommend this title.

Tanenbaum, Andrew S. Modern Operating Systems . Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1992.

I had never considered reading a book like Modern Operating Systems until I was faced with the prospect of writing about client/server systems. I realized that some of the issues raised in Modern Operating Systems were crucial to understanding what it takes to create world-class server-based software. Don't wait until you are about to write a book to read this classic.

Modern Operating Systems contains a great deal of detail on creating distributed operating systems. This information carries over directly to any system that will run on more than a single machine at a time. Even for systems that work on a single machine at a time, the discussions about multithreaded applications and the implications of threading are timeless and crucial to creating server-based software. The section on classical interprocess communication problems alone is likely worth the cost of the book.

Thai, Thuan L. Learning DCOM. Cambridge, Mass.: O'Reilly & Associates, 1999.

This is the one other DCOM book I own besides Inside Distributed COM, by Eddon and Eddon. Given only one book about DCOM, I would choose Inside Distributed COM, but as with many topics this complex, there's benefit from having more than a single source. Learning DCOM is a reasonable second source.

Weissinger, A. Keyton. ASP in a Nutshell: A Desktop Quick Reference. Sebastopol, Calif.:O'Reilly & Associates, 1999.

This is a very high-level look at ASP that is rich in short examples but would be helped by at least one significant example. I sometimes take information gained from this broad overview and use it to target specific information in the MSDN documentation.