ATL Internals: Working With ATL 8

The Active Template Library (ATL) is a set of small, efficient, and flexible classes created by Microsoft that facilitate the creation of interoperable components for developing Windows applications. The latest version of ATL is version 8, released with Visual Studio 2005. While .NET has been getting all the attention recently, there is still a huge base of installed COM/ATL code. Many programmers are dealing with difficult issues adding new .NET code to that installed base. At the same time there are many instances where ATL is still the superior choice for new applications - applications that have to run fast and efficiently on Windows, where the CPU doesn't have the memory or bandwidth to run .NET. This book will be a godsend to developers in both of those situations. As one tech reviewer put it, "Any programmer needing to transition ATL code to .NET will need this book." The first edition was widely praised, and sold close to 20,000 units. While ATL is no longer the cutting edge of Microsoft developer tools, there should still be a strong market for authoritative, complete, deep coverage of the newest version of this standard tool.

Chris Tavares is currently a software development engineer in the Microsoft patterns and practices group, where he strives to help developers learn the best way to develop on the Microsoft platform. He first touched a computer in third grade, doing hand-assembly of machine code on an Intel 8080 machine with 512 bytes (yes, bytes) of memory, a hex keypad, and 7 segment LCD display. He’s been digging into computers and software ever since.

Kirk Fertitta is CTO of Pacific MindWorks, a leading provider of tools and services for electronic test and measurement. With his team at Pacific MindWorks, Kirk works extensively on code generation technology and Visual Studio extensibility. He is also a .NET/C# instructor for Pluralsight.

Brent Rector, president and founder of Wise Owl Consulting, is a noted speaker, consultant, and author, specializing in .NET, ASP.NET, XML, COM+, and ATL.

Chris Sells is a program manager for the Connected Systems Division. He’s written several books, including Programming Windows Presentation Foundation, Windows Forms Programming in C#, and ATL Internals. In his free time, Chris hosts various conferences and makes a pest of himself on Microsoft internal product team discussion lists. More information about Chris, and his various projects, is available at http://www.sellsbrothers.com.