Thread: Windows Programming

Programming Windows by Charles Petzold.


Amazing book. Doesn't cover all the internals of windows programming though, mainly just GUI-oriented stuff. I can make recommendations for other system-level books, but Programming Windows is probably what you're looking for anyway.

Originally Posted by bumfluff

Is it a really difficult books because most of the books I have I understand the first section of the book but then it suddenly becomes very hard.

It's not a very hard book to understand. Given, it's not written as elegantly as something like "The Java Cookbook," but it's a pretty easy to read book that should start you off with windows programming.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/

I haven't found Charles Petzold's book "Programming Windows, the definitive guide to the Win32 API" to be helpful at all:

http://www.gamedev.net/columns/books...p?productid=51

The ONLY THING I like about that book is that he doesn't use extended functions (like WNDCLASSEX, etc). I haven't used extended functions yet and I program on Windows XP.

That website mentioned earlier by maxorator was much more useful: http://www.winprog.org/tutorial

And this little-known forum has been the single most helpful source of information for me:

http://cboard.cprogramming.com/forumdisplay.php?f=7

mw

Originally Posted by Lionmane

I haven't found Charles Petzold's book "Programming Windows, the definitive guide to the Win32 API" to be helpful at all:

http://www.gamedev.net/columns/books...p?productid=51

The ONLY THING I like about that book is that he doesn't use extended functions (like WNDCLASSEX, etc). I haven't used extended functions yet and I program on Windows XP.

That website mentioned earlier by maxorator was much more useful: http://www.winprog.org/tutorial

And this little-known forum has been the single most helpful source of information for me:

http://cboard.cprogramming.com/forumdisplay.php?f=7

mw

I'm pretty sure that, no matter how many problems you had with the book, they are mitigated by the fact that many windows programmers, including myself, the creator of winprog.org, tons of my friends, learned virtually everything they know from that one book that apparently is of quality ".5/5"

I can also guarantee, that generally sites like this (no offense to many here) and other places are generally written and maintained by hobbiests, who, as much as they do not like to admit it, don't understand topics such as programming win32 frontends on the level a professional like Charles Petzold, Jeffrey Richter, Matt Pietrek, etc. etc. might. You're the reader, it's your job to understand it. Syntax is NOT the most important thing anyway. What they teach you in the book is way more important than their examples (and when they do show examples, it's irrelivant if the code is right or not, just that you get the general concept, again, it's your job to understand it.) If you honestly did not learn anything from that book, I suggest you read it again.