What a disappointment! When I first spotted the title of this book I was thrilled. 'Shell Programming', that's what it says in the title! Shell programming to me means my old friends; ksh, sh, awk, sed, et al. It means the facility to write quick one liners to extract a complex report from a database, or make an adjustment to a user account. It means the facility to write complex shell scripts that launder email files before submission to an accounts package. I was quite excited about having the same facilities reliably under Windows.

Yes, the authors might suggest that the Windows Shell could be used to the same end as the UNIX shells, but the whole approach and philosophy is completely different. Here we are considering GUI interfaces and object orientated approaches only. To my mind they lack the elegance, simplicity and beauty of the UNIX command lines.

So, having said that, there is little more I can contribute in this review. If you are looking for a UNIX-like command line approach this book is not for you. If you are looking for an object-orientated, C approach then it might be worth looking at. Well documented Source code abounds and example applications range from a simple CTaskBar to complex calculators and screen savers. However, you'll need Visual C 6.0, SP3. The accompanying CD assumes that, as does the text.