This book ranks amongst the best I have come across in over 15 years of being a professional developer. It begins with a succinct anatomy of COM and continues to cover ATL in detail with outstanding clarity. Stepped samples show how to utilize the development environment to create ATL servers and clients. Combined with the samples are in-depth explanations of the ATL wizard generated code. The book covers much more than its title suggests. In addition to the obvious topics such as ActiveX controls and automation there are comprehensive sections on STL, DCOM security, ADO, OLE-DB, MTS and web scripting. Although ATL is the prime subject matter there is much additional reference material. Very good value.