Visual Basic Instinct : Literature on Windows Sockets

Literature on Windows Sockets

Dale Smith comments books and magazine that have covered the Winsock programming theme lately.

There is an article on the Web (with source code) called "Writing an SMTP Client" (email protocol) that uses the IPPort control. It's at this place. There are followups to this in the next few issues.

The Ezine Visual Basic Online has also had a series of articles on SMTP clients. They start in the September issue & continue in the next few issues (except for December, it will continue in January.)

Visual Basic Programmer's Journal published two articles this year on using Winsock:

"Surfing the Internet" April 95

"Automate Web Data Retrieval" November 95

The following article also appeared in VBPJ, but doesn't specifically cover the Internet. It is about using MAPI as a front-end to Compuserve email. Combining the info from this article with the source code given in the VB-Online articles should be interesting.

"MAPI Fetches Email", February 95

For automatically generating a Web page from an Access database, Access/Visual Basic Advisor magazine :

"Publishing Access Databases on the Internet" December 95

The Advisor people are bringing out a magazine called Internet Advisor in January. My understanding is that it will cover Internet apps development. I hope that the first few articles will be on accessing the Internet.

Here is a list of books which was posted to comp.os.ms-windows.programmer.tools.winsock
You might want to scan over this group just so as to get those occasional goodies.

Windows Sockets Network Programming
Bob Quinn, Stacey Publishing
ISBN 0-201-63372-8
See the sample chapter for info.

Internet Programming
Kris Jamsa et al, Jamsa Press
ISBN 1-884133-12-6
Has a disk; I looked at it myself. It is very thorough and is almost entirely C/C++. Chapter 18 is on VB, but there is not much there. Other books are likely to be of more use to a VB programmer. I can't find a Web page for Jamsa Press.

Programming Winsock
Arthur Dumas, Sams Publishing
ISBN 0-672-30594-1
Allegedly, this focuses on the MFC for VC++. It does not appear on the Sams Web page, and I couldn't find it on the MacMillan new authors list.

Network Programming with Windows Sockets
Pat Bonner, Prentice-Hall
ISBN 0-13-230152-0
(follow links to Prentice-hall page)
There is a catalog of all programming-related & educational books on the Prentice-Hall gopher site, but the host didn't answer when I tried it. gopher://gopher.prenhall.com/11/PTR%20Prentice%20Hall%20Catalogs

Building Internet Applications with Visual Basic
Michael Marchuk, Que Books
ISBN 1-7897-0214-2
I looked at a copy of this book a friend of mine has. There are key components of the source code/apps missing from the disk, so see the Web page for the book and get the files needed. I'm not too impressed with the book, but it is very thorough.

Developing for the Internet with Winsock
Dave Roberts, Coriolis Group Books
ISBN 1-883577-42-X
Specific to C/C++, but still may be of interest to VB programmers. Check out their list of VB books.

Building Internet Applications with Visual C++
Kate Gregory, Que Books
ISBN: 0-7897-0213-4
Yes, I know, it's for C++, but someone might be interested ...

this place. And yes, I know it lists "Internet for Dummies" and other such drivel, but it does have some gems in there. To get the current list by email, send a message

To: booklist-request@northcoast.com
Subject: archive
Body: send booklist

and to subscribe to the mailing list & receive updates (BIG ones!) send a message

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Dale Smith