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The Old New Thing: Practical Development Throughout the Evolution of Windows (Paperback)

by Raymond Chen (Author)

4.1 out of 5 stars See all reviews (10 customer reviews)

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Editorial Reviews

Product Description

"Raymond Chen is the original raconteur of Windows."

--Scott Hanselman, ComputerZen.com

"Raymond has been at Microsoft for many years and has seen many nuances of Windows that others could only ever hope to get a glimpse of. With this book, Raymond shares his knowledge, experience, and anecdotal stories, allowing all of us to get a better understanding of the operating system that affects millions of people every day. This book has something for everyone, is a casual read, and I highly recommend it!"

--Jeffrey Richter, Author/Consultant, Cofounder of Wintellect

"Very interesting read. Raymond tells the inside story of why Windows is the way it is."

--Eric Gunnerson, Program Manager, Microsoft Corporation

"Absolutely essential reading for understanding the history of Windows, its intricacies and quirks, and why they came about."

--Matt Pietrek, MSDN Magazine's Under the Hood Columnist

"Raymond Chen has become something of a legend in the software industry, and in this book you'll discover why. From his high-level reminiscences on the design of the Windows Start button to his low-level discussions of GlobalAlloc that only your inner-geek could love, The Old New Thing is a captivating collection of anecdotes that will help you to truly appreciate the difficulty inherent in designing and writing quality software."

--Stephen Toub, Technical Editor, MSDN Magazine

Why does Windows work the way it does? Why is Shut Down on the Start menu? (And why is there a Start button, anyway?) How can I tap into the dialog loop? Why does the GetWindowText function behave so strangely? Why are registry files called "hives"?

Many of Windows' quirks have perfectly logical explanations, rooted in history. Understand them, and you'll be more productive and a lot less frustrated. Raymond Chen--who's spent more than a decade on Microsoft's Windows development team--reveals the "hidden Windows" you need to know.

Chen's engaging style, deep insight, and thoughtful humor have made him one of the world's premier technology bloggers. Here he brings together behind-the-scenes explanations, invaluable technical advice, and illuminating anecdotes that bring Windows to life--and help you make the most of it.

A few of the things you'll find inside:

What vending machines can teach you about effective user interfaces
A deeper understanding of window and dialog management
Why performance optimization can be so counterintuitive
A peek at the underbelly of COM objects and the Visual C++ compiler
Key details about backwards compatibility--what Windows does and why
Windows program security holes most developers don't know about
How to make your program a better Windows citizen

About the Author

Raymond Chen writes The Old New Thing, one of today's most influential technology blogs. A programmer at Microsoft Corporation, Chen has been involved in the evolution of Windows for more than a decade. He also writes TechNet Magazine's Windows Confidential column and has been known to make appearances at technology events.

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Product Details

Paperback: 560 pages
Publisher: Addison-Wesley Professional; 1 edition (January 6, 2007)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0321440307
ISBN-13: 978-0321440303
Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7 x 1.3 inches
Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)

Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars See all reviews (10 customer reviews)

Amazon.com Sales Rank: #385,313 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

10 Reviews

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4 star:		(6)
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Average Customer Review

4.1 out of 5 stars (10 customer reviews)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Interesting blend of general and specific Windows history..., January 13, 2007

By	Thomas Duff "Duffbert" (Portland, OR United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER) (REAL NAME)

It's a common occurrence as a developer... You go into a program in order to fix something, and you run across some quirky code. "What idiot came up with this?" The reality is that there were likely constraints and limitations at the time that you don't know about. Raymond Chen talks about those issues and many others in the book The Old New Thing: Practical Development Throughout the Evolution of Windows. It's not a book that kept me riveted throughout, but it was interesting nonetheless...

Contents: Initial Forays into User Interface Design; Selected Reminiscences on Windows 95; The Secret Life of GetWindowText; The Taskbar and Notification Area; Puzzling Interface Issues; A History of the GlobalAlloc Function; Short Topics in Windows Programming; Window Management; Reminiscences on Hardware; The Inner Workings of the Dialog Manager; General Software Issues; Digging into the Visual C++ Compiler; Backward Compatibility; Etymology and History; How Window Messages Are Delivered and Retrieved; International Programming; Security; Windows 2000 and Windows XP; Win32 Design Issues; Taxes; Silliness; Index

Chen is a programmer for the Windows operating system, and he uses this book to tell the "history" of Windows development. The chapters are divided up into subsections that are often titled "Why..." The approach is to explain why certain design decisions were made, given the environment of the time. The writing style is conversational and somewhat irreverent, so in large part it's a book that you would sit down and read like an entertaining nonfiction essay. For instance, you'll find out that having a huge dictionary for spell checking isn't necessarily a good thing ("werre" is a proper word in the Oxford English dictionary). You'll learn that staying away from maintaining maps for software sold internationally is a wise move. And why exactly is CR+LF the defacto line terminator, anyway? It's those tidbits and insights that made the book well worth reading for me.

On the flip side, the book gets into a *lot* of Windows API coding, complete with code listings, comparisons, and how-tos. Now, if you're a hard-core Windows developer, you may well find that the sections on the difference between CreateMenu and CreatePopupMenu or what is _purecall are more to your liking. These are the parts where the geeky developer will be able to find out why a certain API comes loaded down with so much seemingly extraneous baggage. As someone who *isn't* into Windows API work, I found these chapter sections less interesting and tended to start skimming over them. Again, it all depends on what you're after when reading this book...

Both the specialist and generalist will have something to like about The Old New Thing. The developer geek will probably get more out of it than I did, but it was worth reading in any case.

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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Perfect insight, July 24, 2007

By	Jiri Deml (Czech republic) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I absolutely recommend this book to every geek interested in Windows history. It sheds perfect light on some "Why is it?" aspects of Windows and also has some nice low-level-stuff related reading.

You will love Raymond's writing style!

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3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Definitely enjoyable, April 2, 2007

By	Michael Wiley "Leader, LRDNUG" (Little Rock, AR) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

As an old C++ programmer, I can appreciate some of the pearls of wisdom in this book. If helps you to understand why some things work they way they do in Windows and other Microsoft software. It has some code in it, but you needn't be fluent in C or C++ to understand it. Chen has excellent storytelling ability, and it's a very enjoyable read. For "long time" developers - this is a "must read". For newer developers, this should be required reading to help understand the guts of Windows and how things operate. I highly recommend this book for all Microsoft developers. Use this as your "fun reading material", for it's not a programming book.

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Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars A collection of fascinating insights
Raymond has as good an insight as anyone (well, ALMOST anyone) into the history of Windows and the reasoning behind why things are the way they are. Read more

Published 2 months ago by B. Beck

4.0 out of 5 stars Essential reading for the "why" of Windows
Ever wondered why something in Windows is as it is? This is the book for you!

Raymond is a long-time member of the Windows development team and has blogged profusely... Read more

Published 8 months ago by Rich Turner

4.0 out of 5 stars Something for everyone
Chen has been deeply involved in the development of Windows for a long time. This collection of essays is a compilation (with occasional extensions) of material from his blog... Read more

Published 13 months ago by G. A. Findlay

2.0 out of 5 stars "casual read"
Let me quote some the reviews: "casual read", definitely; "interesting reading", somewhat; "essential reading", not much for programmers until Chapter 7.

Published 23 months ago by joe

5.0 out of 5 stars The true insiders guide to Windows
Raymond Chen's book is a technically deep, thoughtful, and delightful view of writing great programs for Windows. Read more

Published on March 5, 2007 by Steven Sinofsky

4.0 out of 5 stars Filled with great articles on useful Windows bits
This book is full of highly-entertaining articles on everything from why you can't install Windows via XCOPY to the evolution of Win32 dialog templates. Read more

Published on February 24, 2007 by James Holmes

4.0 out of 5 stars blend of programming and UI issues
The disturbing aspect of this book is if you remember some of the events that Chen talks about. Especially the further back in time they were. Read more

Published on January 4, 2007 by W Boudville

› See all 10 customer reviews...

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