本书系编程语言先驱者Ivor Horton的经典之作，是学习C++编程最畅销的图书品种之一，不仅涵盖了Visual C++ .NET编程知识，还全面介绍了标准C++语言和.NET C++/CLI。本书延续了Ivor Horton讲解编程语言的独特方法，从中读者可以学习Visual C++ 2005的基础知识，并全面掌握在MFC和Windows Forms中访问数据源的技术。此外，本书各章后面的习题将有助于读者温故而知新，并尽快成为C++高效程序员。这个是英文原版！

Welcome to Beginning Visual C++ 2005. With this book you can become an effective C++ programmer.

The latest development system from Microsoft, Visual Studio 2005, supports two distinct but closely related flavors of the C++ language; it fully supports the original ISO/ANSI standard C++, and you also get support for a new version of C++ called C++/CLI that was developed by Microsoft but is now an ECMA standard. These two versions of C++ are complementary and fulfill different roles. ISO/ANSI C++ is there for the development of high-performance applications that run natively on your computer whereas C++/CLI has been developed specifically for the .NET Framework. This book will teach you the essentials of programming applications in both versions of C++.

You get quite a lot of assistance from automatically generated code when writing ISO/ANSI C++ programs, but you still need to write a lot of C++ yourself. You need a solid understanding of object-oriented programming techniques, as well as a good appreciation of what’s involved in programming for Windows.

Although C++/CLI targets the .NET Framework, it also is the vehicle for the development of Windows Forms applications that you can develop with little or in some cases no, explicit code writing. Of course, when you do have to add code to a Windows Forms application, even though it may be a very small proportion of the total, you still need an in-depth knowledge of the C++/CLI language.

ISO/ANSI C++ remains the language of choice for many professionals, but the speed of development that C++/CLI and Windows Forms applications bring to the table make that essential, too. For this reason I decided to cover the essentials of both flavors of C++ in this book.