Hello, I'm trying to get into Windows programming and I've been told by a friend that this book (The one by Charles Petzold) is the best place to start. I know C++ pretty well, so that isn't a problem, but I'm worried about how old the book is. I doubt most of the code has changed between Win98 and today, but if I study this 1600 page tome will I get stuck with a modern compiler on some archaic term that isn't used anymore? I guess what I'm most worried about is wasting my whole summer reading this and learning a lot of stuff that is completely useless today.
Also, I know that everything is going to 64-bit these days with Windows 7 and all, and I'm worried that I'd be even further behind because of that with this book, should I not waste my time with it and look for something a little more modern?
Thanks, hopefully you guys can stop trolling for one min and help with a real question.
I'm currently reading http://tinyurl.com/6po357 , which was last updated late 2001. It focuses on game programming, but early on it focuses on things like window classes, handles, resources, the WndProc callback, etc.
I'd also recommend Microsoft Internals by Mark Russinovich and David Solomon. It basically explores features of the WinNT kernel.
>>1
>doubt most of the code has changed between Win98 and today
（ ≖‿≖）
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Anonymous2009-06-28 19:52
>>7
except the NT and 9x kernels are compl...
ah, you were trolling. Very nice, you almost had me there for a second, but I can proudly say that I have not been trolled.
Learn .NET and stop spooning out pieces of broken glass onto your mom.
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Anonymous2009-06-28 21:04
>>9
The only troll posts I see are the OP's post and >>9
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Anonymous2009-06-29 1:44
Most programs written for Win95 will run perfectly on Vista with no problem if they stick to the documented Win32 API. So yes, do learn it. But I recommend not trying to memorize the API completely, just remember how to do basic things like create windows and stuff while looking up in the reference for the functions you need while actually writing code.
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FrozenVoid2009-06-29 2:19
>>3 Thank you. I was searching for exactly this kind of reference.
>>1
The base WinAPI hasn't changed that much, so the book is still relevant, but there are many new additions, so you'll want to update your knowledge on that.
P.S.: Win98 and WinNT are different operating systems(different kernel/driver model), but they still implement the same base Windows APIs, except that Win9x implements much less of them(as a lot were added in NT), and has horrible/inexistent unicode support.
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Anonymous2009-06-29 11:05
That book teaches the Win32 API which is old and ugly. Unless you specifically need to learn Win32 programming, I wouldn't bother. I suggest learning Qt library, which is much nicer.
>>22
The Win32 API is still the base API used, everything on Windows thunks down to it (which eventually thunks down to NT API and down to the kernel). There is no harm in learning it, but you could just look up MSDN whenever you need to use it and get the same results.
P.S.: Win98 and WinNT are different operating systems(different kernel/driver model), but they still implement the same base Windows APIs, except that Win9x implements much less of them(as a lot were added in NT), and has horrible/inexistent unicode support.
Win32 was actually developed on NT and then ported to Windows 95.
The Win32 API is still the base API used, everything on Windows thunks down to it (which eventually thunks down to NT API and down to the kernel).
Not everything. Some people use the NT API directly instead of getting ass-raped by Win32.