Pocket PC Game Programming: Using the Windows CE Game API [Paperback]

Jonathan S. Harbour (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 768 pages
• Publisher: Premier Press; 1 edition (April 1, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0761530576
• ISBN-13: 978-0761530572
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7.4 x 1.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,033,873 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Jonathan S. Harbour was born in Sacramento, CA, grew up in Redding, and now resides in the Phoenix area with his wife and four children. Now a freelance writer, he recently spent five years developing and facilitating the Bachelor and Master degree programs in game development at UAT (Tempe, AZ). His books cover many languages (C++, C#, VB, Basic, Lua, Python, Java), libraries (DirectX, Allegro, XNA), and hardware (GBA, Xbox, Xbox 360, cell phones).

For fun, he enjoys reading books on physics, cosmology, metaphysics, anthropology, and game development (of course) from authors such as S. Hawking, M. Kaku, H. Ross, A. George, C. Yarbro, with a personal library of over 500 books. He also enjoys bike riding, long hikes, and mind-expanding TV shows and movies of the futurist variety.

On a personal note, I wish there really was a Night Elf Mohawk character class.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Pocket PC Game Programming, January 18, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: Pocket PC Game Programming: Using the Windows CE Game API (Paperback)

Excellent tutorial for becoming familiar with programming for the Pocket PC platform, but also for novices to windows programming in general. Harbour starts at the ground up, explaining the differences between the two in an easier to understand writing style. I have tried for years to grasp c++ programming after working with BASIC and countless other languages but for some reason could not. After working through the book, not only did I have a working, infinitely expandable 2D game engine for programming for PPC, but I had finally gained a much better understanding of the language.

14 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great book but typos in code on cd, June 12, 2001

By 

Don R. Hanson II (Beaverton, OR USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Pocket PC Game Programming: Using the Windows CE Game API (Paperback)

If you know how to program and want to try out the Pocket PC then this is a great book to own. It gives you some background, spends just a little time on the "structure of a Windows app", then gets into doing cool things on the PocketPC. The chapters on getting images to the screen faster using the Game Api (DirectX precursor) were great. I've always wanted to do Sockets/Networking programming and this book is where I learned. Btw, I'm not a game programmer!

Only downside is the cd which contains a number of errors in the example code. Since the code is also in the book, its not that big of a deal (just a little shoddy). The cd also comes packed with a ton of games.

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Forget the *GAME* part, March 15, 2002

By 

Patrick Roberts (Los Angeles, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Pocket PC Game Programming: Using the Windows CE Game API (Paperback)

If you wanted to write a game for a PocketPC device this would absolutly be your book. However, I've been writing utility applications I find myself using this book over other references. This is the best lightweight WinCE/PocketPC progamming book out there- games or not. Harbour covers topics in a very easy-to-understand way- from graphics and sound to networking. No matter what the issue I usually go to this book first, then then web, then one of the other WinCE books I own if need be. If you're new to WinCE (esp. coming from a non Win32 background) this book is exceptionally great.