Customer Reviews

Programming Windows 95

5 star:		(31)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Even though this edition has been 'out there' for about 3 1/2 years, it's still the best intro to Windows C programming on the market. Why? Simple. Petzold is a gifted writer/teacher that knows the Windows API like the back of his hand. He writes VERY clearly (without ambiguity) and, unlike most authors on the subject, never uses terminology or skills that he hasn't already covered. Petzold almost anticipates your questions and confusions and addresses them succinctly. Any programmer familiar with C can learn Windows programming from this book alone. I have many books on Windows programming but I'd trade them all for this one.

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.

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.

Programming Windows95 is another excellent book, you can buy any book of Petzold cause you know that is a waranty... Windows programming is not easy so take with calm the reading of this book, maybe the chapters 1,2,3 are quite easy but once you get into chapter 4 it is a pain to get involved into windows programming.

This book is very informative and tells you all about how to program windows 95. For a generation of c-programmers, "look it up in Petzold" has been the final word on questions about programming windows. IN this thorough revision, Petzold reveals many valuable new insights, augmented by key contributions by programming expert Paul Yao (of the Paul Yao company, Seattle). Have a nice day!

If you want to program in Windows 95 (or 98), start with this book. Everything you need to know to write applications in C or C++ is in here. The book is well written, the examples are clear and useful, and the sticky points of certain features are repeated wherever the features are used (so if you use the book like a reference you won't get hosed by a tricky point first raised in an earlier chapter).

Most of the book deals with drawing on the screen and presenting the user interface, but it also covers memory management, multithreading, file I/O, printing, and other useful topics.

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.

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.

This book, shows an easy to use way of programming windows 95. It has allot of stuff on menus, scrollbars, drawing with GDI primitives, writing to the registry, creating DLL's, printing, ole, linking etc.. I read a couple of pages and know that it is GREAT. Although it left out some important stuff like most of the controls that windows uses it's a preety good starter for those who are entering windows programing. I also read Direct X for dummies by Andre Lamothe and found that book to be a Perfect Preparer for this book.

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).