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Programming References for the Win32 Environment?

Posted by Cliff on from the MFC-Bible-and-its-420-commandments dept.

Pablo asks: "I have to do some programming in Windows (for school, not by choice). To say that I know jack-all about Windows programming would be flattering myself. I never do any programming under *NIX without my trusty copy of Stevens' 'Advanced Programming in the UNIX Environment' by my side. I'm wondering if there is an equivalent 'bible' reference book for Windows programming. Does anyone have any recommendations?"

1 of 86 comments (clear)

  1. Help File by scott1853 · · Score: 1, Troll

    Just get the API help files. They come with ANY professional development environment.

    Don't bother with MSDN unless you have hours to spend trying to figure out where information is hiding and you feel like reading propaganda in what are suppose to be technical documents. MSDN is just another place for MS to charge a fee and promote other products.

    Just as an example, prior to the release of Windows XP, they had a 4 page article discussing the new features that would benefit developers in XP, and all they could discuss is 32-bit color large icons and new APIs to support Luna, which IIRC required an extra 5 lines per control creation.

    Anyways, in using the API Reference, if you're not sure what a parameter is suppose to do because the documentation is confusing, just pass NULL and 9 times out of 10 it'll work.