I am David Conger, the primary author of this book. Please allow me to explain what happened with the code examples.



When Ron (the other author) and I were writing this, we experienced no problems with the code. We tested it on a variety of computers and did our best to ensure that it worked properly. I was appalled to hear that it was not working for about 1/3 of the customers who bought this book. I have been completely unable to reproduce the errors that people are having. However, from the reports I have received, I believe that there is a linker problem in the MAKE files that people are creating. Unless you follow my instructions EXACTLY, you may not succeed in compiling and running the code. Also, some people who DO follow my instructions exactly still experience problems. I have been unable to obtain any debugging information on this, butI suspect it has something to do with their computer's memory configuration. That, however, is just a guess.



The long and short of it is that, as the author, I am responsible. I used the GCC compiler for this book because Microsoft's Visual C++ Express Edition was not available until just before the book was released. Although GCC is a nice toolchain in many ways, I have learned by sad experience that it is not a compiler that should be put into the hands of beginners. Dealing with makefile issues is not for the feint of heart.



As a result of this experience, I strongly adivise beginners to use compilers from commercial sources, such as Mirosoft and Apple. Stay away from GCC until you have more experience.



I extend my apologies to anyone who purchased this book and had problems with it.