I thought that I would add a few comments on completing the book. I have posted what I see to be corrections to errors found, but I would not like the need for these corrections to be seen as a condemnation of what, for me, has been an excellent and highly recommendable tutorial.

In the last few months I have completed all the examples and many of the exercises.

a) Generally I have found the book and the examples very easy to follow. There are some concepts I will need to go over again, now that I can put them into perspective, but after over 25 years in electronics systems and design, with a very little software along the way, adding knowledge of C++ and OO software was not going to be easy.

b) All of the chapters are of a reasonable length, averaging about 50 pages each, except for one, which is just short of 100 pages.

c) There are a few errors, but I see these simply as teething problems. Now that most, if not all, have been found and posted, others should have confidence in being able to obtain the results as predicted in the text. (I am still attempting to resolve the SQL Server 2005 Express problem posted.) The use of the WROX website as a forum to discuss the book and exchange ideas is both very welcome and excellent.

d) The use of screen dumps of almost every stage, indicating what to expect, has been very useful.

e) Making the code demonstrated in the book available, together with answers to the exercises has been a tremendous help, not least when inadvertently inserting my own errors –for example using upper instead of lower case.

f) Would I recommend the book to others? Most definitely, yes. The book works around a well used, modern resource (Visual Studio 2005) and to my mind and in terms of my personal objectives, it has been well thought out, planned and paced and hence has given me a good insight into C++. Before making a purchase I did look at alternatives, but I do not believe that any of them would have matched the extensive scope of Beginning Visual C++ 2005.