The Active Template Library (ATL) is a tool that simplifies the creation of COM+ components -- ATL 3 especially helps Visual C++ 6 programmers produce very small and efficient code. COM+ is the grand unifying technology for all Microsoft platforms, applications and operating systems. ATL is distributed, complete with source code, with versions of Visual C++ 4 onwards. ATL takes the form of a programmer's code library and comes with Wizards that enable easy component development. The latest version of ATL is 3.0, which has extensive extra Wizard features for direct Windows and data access programming. If released, the book will encompass version 3.1, which is expected to be a very minor revision.