microsoft

I am an experienced software engineer with a Unix/X Window System background and needed to get up to speed on the Win32 API without being coddled like a child or taught how to program. I looked at Win32 books for several months before I found this book on the shelf.

I like the organization of the book which starts with the core of a well-behaved Win32 application and moves on to bigger and better things with each chapter. I learned many good Win32 programming habits, such as the proper use of Unicode and <tchar.h>, proper message loop structuring, and so-on from this book. These lessons in Win32 programming were learned the hard way (from the school of hard knocks also called "experience") by the authors so that I didn't have to suffer the same torturous fate.

The authors start with the core of a Win32 application and then move through the core GDI objects: device contexts, fonts, windows, etc. Then they proceed to examine all the common controls one by one with an exhaustive reference of all their messages.

Along the way, the authors point out places where porting from Win16 to Win32 might be a problem, as well as pointing out known bugs in the MSDN documentation and the Win32 implementation, referencing knowledge base articles for more detail. I also found the advice for those transitioning from a unix background helpful.

This might not be the best book for a beginner that has never written a GUI application before, but if you're familiar with the basics of event driven GUI applications from other window systems (AmigaOS, BeOS, MacOS or X Window System), then this book will teach you what you need to know about Win32 without wasting your time explaining things that you already know and understand.

If you are a complete beginner, you might be better off with a different book to start with, but still might enjoy this book as a reference once you've got the basics down. When I asked around on usenet about Win32 books, many people suggested Richter's book. I looked at Richter's book many times but it just didn't move me to buy it because I wanted a book that was a more exhaustive reference and one that didn't assume I was a beginner programmer.

Several people said "Yeah, I learned from Richter, but /Win32 Programming/ is the book I keep on the shelf. Once I read through Richter, I didn't use it anymore." Another factor is that /Win32 Programming/ is hardback, which makes it stand up to lots of use on a day-to-day basis.

Anyone who currently programs in the Win32 environment or wants to learn how to do so needs this book. It exhaustively details the thousands of widgets (i.e. functions, manifest constants, structures, etc) that make up Win32, and provides detailed intellegent discussions of the concepts behind those widgets. These discussions are conducted in excellent English. The examples are mostly in 'C' with some 'C++'.

As a consequence this book is not for beginners. You must have a firm grasp of 'C' in order to follow the thread of the model program which is developed in the book. Since this is some of the most difficult programming imaginable, it is not a good place to start learning 'C'.

Some of the conceptual discussions are outstanding. I particularly liked the section on coordinate transformations. I had orginally consulted Windows "Help" and Petzold trying to get a handle on this elusive and difficult subject. I found that the explanation in this book was by far the most accessable and exhaustive.

The index is particularly well arranged and useful, and add immeasurably to the utility of the book.

This book is unique in its structure, in that it serves as both a reference and a teaching guide simultaneously. If one merely needs to refresh the memory or one encounters a new concept that need elaboration, this book will almost certainly fill the bill in the most efficient way possible.

I will use this book for many years to come, and wish that I had known about it earlier as it would have saved me an enormous amount of labor.

It is one of those rare computer books that is written for the ages, rather than the current release of the software.

(the author of this review is a software engineer of over 30 years experience, most of it non-Windows)

Very good on the level of detail, and incredible on the pitfalls and specific problems they found when actually writing the code for the examples. Be careful, though - a number of the tables (and even some of the printed code samples) contain typos and other minor errors (like missing headings, making one table pretty useless!). You can figure out what's wrong, but if you just use this as a reference and happen to hit a section with an error you might not catch it without reading the accompanying text. I read it through, rather than as a reference, and it was clear which parts of the text had only been lightly checked for the latest edition.

Again, 95+% of this book is really great! And the anecdotes and clear detail on where MS documentation is "flawed" are of terrific value - I definitely am glad to have purchased it, but I also want to point out that if something in it doesn't make sense - you're probably not crazy. It's quite likely to be a typo...

Oh - one more thing. The "Explorer" samples they include were a fabulous idea, and have really helped me figure out what the heck some of the various style (and other) flags really meant. Extra credit for the CD! :-)