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Title: Win32 Programming by Brent E. Rector, Joseph M. Newcomer ISBN: 0-201-63492-9 Publisher: Addison-Wesley Pub Co Pub. Date: 06 January, 1997 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $69.99 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.88 (24 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: The most comprehensive single windows book available
Comment: Get ready for a glowing recommendation. This is absolutely the most informative single book on Windows programming I have ever read. Covers a massive array of windows API funtions and objects.
An absolute must for both beginners and experienced programmers due to it's excellent index. You can look just about any term up in the index making the book much easier to digest.
Furthermore, the book starts with a skeleton windows application upon which the reader builds more complexity throughout the book. Excellent approach to learning a programming environment. Reminds me of the massive old documentation with comprehensive indexes you would get in the old days. Also comes with a CD containing examples used in the book. Imagine a book you can use for both reference and learning. What a concept!
Rating: 5
Summary: A definitve and exhaustive reference and learning source
Comment: 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)
Rating: 4
Summary: Good, but needs editting
Comment: 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! :-)
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Title: Programming Windows, Fifth Edition by Charles Petzold ISBN: 157231995X Publisher: Microsoft Press Pub. Date: 11 November, 1998 List Price(USD): $59.99 |
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Title: Win32 System Programming: A Windows(R) 2000 Application Developer's Guide (2nd Edition) by Johnson M. Hart ISBN: 0201703106 Publisher: Addison-Wesley Professional Pub. Date: 29 September, 2000 List Price(USD): $59.99 |
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Title: Introduction to MFC Programming with Visual C++ by Richard M. Jones ISBN: 0130166294 Publisher: Prentice Hall PTR Pub. Date: 22 December, 1999 List Price(USD): $39.99 |
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Title: Windows NT Win32 API SuperBible by Richard Simon ISBN: 1571690891 Publisher: Waite Group Press Pub. Date: 13 May, 1997 List Price(USD): $64.99 |
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Title: The Windows 2000 Device Driver Book: A Guide for Programmers (2nd Edition) by Jerry Lozano, Art Baker ISBN: 0130204315 Publisher: Prentice Hall PTR Pub. Date: 20 November, 2000 List Price(USD): $59.99 |
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