<< 1 >>
Rating: 
Summary: The fog has cleared, this is THE book on the subject
Review: After looking for some time, this is the right book for the Mac turned Windows programmer. If you learned how to "walk the walk" of message based windows programming - ala mother apple and you just can not stand or need another long winded review of what a graf port is, if you know conceptually how they did it but need a quick review of where the heck it is in the hierarchy of Billy's world, if you are looking for template examples which will not require 98% rework when you add exception handling. This is the one. Suddenly I am getting productive again.
Rating: 
Summary: Overall, Programming Win95 4th edition is a useful book.
Review: Content is good, presentation poor.The author does a poor job formulating his thoughts, and keeping the presentations concise. When you're learning about something as intricate as the Windows API, excess (and unnecessary) verbiage is the last thing a reader wants (or needs) to encounter. Content is good. Although (related to my previous point), I found that when I would start a new topic I would have to do a lot of interpreting to understand *what* was being presented (this is normally the role of the author, not the reader). Should you buy the book? That's your decision. Did I? Absolutely. I have the 5th edition as well. Like I said, the content is good. Once you find your way, and become comfortable and familiar with the book, there's a lot of information in it that will aid you greatly in solving (and understanding) your programming problems.
Rating:
Summary: Buy this book!
Review: For anyone programming windows user interfaces, this is the book you need. It is just the right amount of concepts and Petzold includes a clear, concise programming example for nearly everything he talks about. The examples are written in C and he does not complicate the issue by trying to teach other libraries such as MFC. Just pure C code. If you are writing servers and need information on theads, synchronization, DLLs, or network programming then this book will not suit you. It mostly covers user interface.
Rating:
Summary: It has it's uses.
Review: For those people who are interested in just cranking out quick programs, I wouldn't bother with this book and would instead pick up something on MFC, or heaven forbid, Visual Basic.
However, when using DirectX for game programming, you are not interested in clogging up the system with the irrelevant code that MFC can bog the system down with, you need a clean interface that you can work with.
This book helps work with that interface, by not forcing you into classes and whole library routines for everything, but instead lets you get at the system behind those libraries.
Yes, it is harder to work with than MFC but as any game programmer can tell you harder means that you have more control over things, which leads to the chance to make things run faster.
I still have to go to my bookshelf and drag this volume off of it from time to time to refresh myself in how to do things manually, such as building a dialog box or menu from a resource script, rather than using a WYSIWYG editor.
If you have need for the control that you can get by working with windows directly, this is a book to check out.
Rating:
Summary: Still the best intro on the market
Review: I know this has been said before, but i'll say it again. This is the definitive Win32 API book. I always have this book by at my side as i program. I also recommend this book to people wanting to learn MFC, its worth it to read it. The only need i can find, is a chapter on Common Dialogs. Thank you Petzold, your book will be the one future programmers will have to read to know what programming was like in the 90's. Most commonly used programming phrase of the 90's: Look it up in the Petzold.
Rating:
Summary: It's the bible for a reason
Review: I laughed when I read the review about Petzold being "the old way, the obsolete way". Need to create a 10pt Arial bold font? Look to Petzold. Need to get a bitmap to a DC? Look to Petzold. Petzold's book has most of the common Windows programming tasks covered. The stuff that MFC doesn't wrap and the MFC authors don't cover. I'm embarassed to say that after ten years of programming Windows (since 2.0, baby, yeah!), currently in an all MFC environment, I still need Petzold. I'm on my third copy.
Rating:
Summary: The Best. The Greatest. Forget the MFC stuff.
Review: I purchased, read, and used Petzold's book "Programming Windows 3.1" and it was great. This book is just as great. It is the definitive book on learning to program in Windows. One observation though. Some of the omissions (NO mention of Borland, even though this book went to print before Borland's demise) makes me think the con artists at Microsoft twisted Mr. Petzold's arm a little on this one. That notwithstanding, this really is a worthwhile book for anyone trying to learn to program Windows95 (or NT).
Rating:
Summary: THE Windows Programming Book
Review: The only regret I have about when I first started learning Windows programming is that I didn't read this book sooner. In my initial 6-month learning curve I found this book and David Kruglinski's Inside Visual C++ the only two books I ever referenced. In my experience I have found that the best MFC programmers are those that have "served their time" coding to the Win32 API, and this book will give you that knowledge.
Rating:
Summary: Great book for people wanting to learn Windows programming
Review: This is a great book for people wanting to get into programming windows. I must warn you though that knowledge of C is required. If you're a beginner I recommend getting a good C or C++ book before trying to tackle this book, but if you already have a good grasp of C or C++ buying any other book on Windows programming would be a mistake.
<< 1 >>
| 
