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Summary: Learn to write windows programs the old fashioned way.
Review: As everybody says, Programming Windows by Charles Petzold, now in its fifth edition is the definitive guide to the Win32 API, and windows based programming in general. Anybody who has experience in C programming and would like to learn how windows programs are written will be very happy reading this book, and will come away with a new found knowledge of windows programming. Covering all the basics such as the structure of a windows program written in C, and the major aspects of the GDI, and other advanced topics after reading this book you will be ready to write your own windows programs, and then be ready to move onto more advanced topics such as MFC, where it helps to know what is really going on. The major topics covered in the book are graphics which include the printer, bitmaps, palettes, text and fonts, and also metafiles. The advanced topics go to include the basics of the multiple-document interface, multithreading and DLL's, and also sound programming and a small bit of internet programming. Those who want to know more about how the more advanced topics work would be happy reading Programming Applications for Microsoft Windows by Jeffrey Richter also, which goes into more detail about threads and DLL's than this book.
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Summary: Thorough and Easy to Use
Review: He gives you all of his examples with the CD, and lists everything step by step. If you currently know C and want to learn windows programming, this book is a MUST for you. He teaches you everything that you need to know to program in Windows. Examples were extremely helpful. Warning, if you want a book to just "gloss" over and teach you, then this isn't it, and you probably won't find one for Windows programming. If you want to really learn step by step, then you will love this book.
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Summary: An Excellent BOOK
Review: I can't help admiring this classic book by petzold. several generation programmer got nutrition from it. someone may say it's outdated,because now most of programmer have turned to MFC,VCL. I believe they are wrong entirely! In my opinion, the only way to master windows programming is understanding the windows API and mechanism of windows operating sysytem behind its gorgeous user interface. petzold's book is a good begin for everyone who want to be a good windows programmer.petzold's writing style is concise, crystal clear and easy-accessibility.
So I strongly recommend it to you ,and I also recommend you another classic book :"programming application for windows" by jeffrey richter after you finish this book and wanna improvement in windows programming.
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Summary: Overrated - and obfuscated
Review: I disagree with other reviewers. I bought this book knowing C/C++ and Unix very well - and expecting to pick up Win32. I was very disappointed. The writing is not clear, it is not well ordered or well presented, it is huge and expensive but somehow doesn't cover many important topics (Personally I think the author bulked it up by putting every single line of code he can in there, even if that line has been repeated in 3 earlier programs). You would be far better off getting Win32 Programming by Rector/Newcomer - I did and have never looked back and now I know Win32 very well. Not only does that book teach Win32, it shows how to do it and keep your code clean. Stay away from Petzold's book.
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Summary: The best way to learn the Win32 API from scratch
Review: I own 'Programming Windows 95' which is a previous version of this book...this newer version adds additional information, while retaining the best of the older versions. I'm a self-taught software engineer and have relied on books for most of my training. When I needed to learn the Win32 API to write Windows application programs, I initially turned to the Microsoft website and their tutorials, but found this approach frustrating because there was no overall picture presented...a lot of knowledge was assumed. Petzold's book was the answer to my frustrations...it assumed no Windows specific knowledge, although general C/C++ background is assumed. The book starts with simple examples that are thoroughly explained. Once enough topics are covered, an excellent overview of Windows as an event-driven operating system is presented, and the remainder of the book is devoted to covering real-world, useful examples in enough detail that they provide starting points for the reader's own development projects. In the companies for which I've worked, most of the programmers refer to Petzold's book as the 'bible' for Windows programming...for good reason. This is the best book for learning Windows programming if you are starting with no previous knowledge of the Windows operating system.
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Summary: Well worth buying & reading...
Review: I started reading this book almost by accident as I have a natural distrust of books that tend towards the size of a small family car. I believe that the people who commission computer books must be in league with the paper companies to decide that somewhere in the region of 1400 pages makes for "a good read." Over lunch with the author, just after a sumptuous raspberry coulis has been delivered to the table, they must lean forward and, sotto voce, mutter "an extra 10% if it's over 1200 pages." This can be the only reason for the vast array of shelf-strainers that must make an average Waterstone's computing section weigh more than the Isle of Wight ferry. With such reservations, it was with more than a little surprise that Charles Petzold's contribution to deforestation turned out to be emminently readable. The text is well written, showing that Petzold clearly understands his topic, and laid out in a format that is very easy on the eye, both areas where other books fall down regularly. There is little waffle either; you can't flick 100 pages and feel that you've missed nothing. By the end of chapter one, with the page count still only in double digits, the reader has been presented with a working Windows program written in C. This is something of a novelty in this area with most other books a) first teaching you C and b) just reaching coverage of the "for" statement at about page 350. This book is designed to teach the reader how to write programs in C for the Microsoft Windows operating system. This may sound redundant with the abundance of visual programming languages such as Delphi and Visual Basic that hide the complexity of talking directly to the operating system, but as soon as you hit a problem that requires a knowledge of what Windows is doing this is where the knowledge this book contains comes in. Without this knowledge it is also a lot harder to become proficient in that towering colossus that is Microsoft's Visual C++ development environment. To write code in Visual C++ almost invariably involves using Microsoft's Foundation Classes (MFC) which are a glorified wrapper to the OS calls that Petzold introduces us to. However, most books on this topic tend not to explain what is really going on leaving the reader with a lot of head scratching as to why something is done. Once you understand Petzold then what MFC is doing becomes, in most cases, crystal clear. Most people will never use this book as a C programming reference. I am one of them. But, as a springboard into C++ with MFC, this book is worth its, not inconsiderable, weight in gold.
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Summary: A bit out-dated, Wait for a newer edition
Review: I think this is a excellent book if you want to learn Windows 98 programming. I think the book is not worth $40 because the book is 6 years old, and the material you learn will be outdated soon. Since Microsoft is going to release Windows Longhorn which will include Avalon, the book will slowly become obsolete. I suggest waiting for the sixth edition that will most likely be released when Windows Longhorn is released.
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Summary: Lots of topics covered, with just enough info on each one
Review: If you're going to be programming for Windows, with or without MFC, you need this on your bookshelf. Petzold covers nearly everything, including a good overview of unicode right up front where it belongs. He then goes on to cover the GDI, mouse and keyboard input, modal and modeless dialogs, most common controls, and very basic multithreading issues. All chapters contain complete, working examples that leave lots of room for you to play around once you've convinced yourself you understand the basic concepts. I haven't run through all of them yet, but I haven't found any erros in those I've used. All I'd add for the next edition is a discussion of Z ordering, an overview of resource scripts (to break the dependence on the Visual C++ wizards), serialization, and perhaps a little more detail on parent/child relationships. As it stands now, this book doesn't lend itself as well to use with the Borland compilers as it does with Microsoft's.
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Summary: Perennial Classic
Review: Its almost 7 years since I first started referring to Charles Petzold's classic book (for Native Win32 SDK). Even though I now use much varied tools and manage different development environments, this book still is as precious a resource. 1. Very simple language
2. Productive examples
3. Broad scope (mdi, dlls, internet programming etc) Hope you find it as useful too!
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Summary: Good book, but the code needs comments
Review: My only gripe about this amazing book is that the source code is not well documented. At times he does a few tricky things that would be much easier to understand if there were a few lines of comments in the code.
Other than that, it is a wonderful book that any computer science student who is doing windows programming will find useful.
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