Is Petzold's book still relevant?

[tyler22]

From what I've read, Win32 API hasn't changed in years. I've learned the basics of getting a simple window up, but I'd like to continue learning. Is Petzold's book still of relevance, or is there another book I should get?

[aaron84]

Yes it is still relevant. Most everything you learn in that book(the 5th edition) still applies to native desktop apps today. I think it was XP that introduced visual styles which gives UI components a more modern look & feel, matching the OS(in case you're wondering why your buttons and whatnot look like Win95 by default).

I'd say the most significant difference in modern apps is the explicit use of unicode where the book prefers generic types(TCHAR etc).

[nesmith]

The 5th Ed. book uses C instead of C++. Is that a big deterrent to those who have read the book and are primarily C++ programmers? Or do you read the book primarily for the introduction to Win32 API?

[defaultplayer]

Well, Win32 simply isn't a C++ API, so you will (only) read C code. The 5th edition is as far as I know the newest one concerning Win32, as the 6th one focuses on Windows 8 apps.
In my opinion the use of C doesn't make the book any worse. As nesmith says, "Programming Windows" is of course a book for people who want to learn using the Win32 API. Most (almost all) code still works for Windows 7. The interested reader will find an extensive description of that API and occasionally there is interesting background information, for example about its history.

[freddie1]

This is my favorite review of Charles' book on Amazon.com by R.B. Doe ...

This may sound a little over the top to some, but I get a real wind-in-my-hair feeling when I read this book. It reminds me of the good old days of Windows programming, when all you needed was a good idea, a text editor and a copy of Petzold. No Wizards, no code bloat, no multi-gigabyte IDE doing who knows what in the background. It was a time when a programmer (that's how people referred to developers back then) would put on headphones, crank up the Rush (the Canadian power trio, not the talk show windbag), and pound out C code. The applications we produced back then ran in a dew drop of memory. We knew the how to interpret the WPARAM and LPARAM for most of the Windows messages, because we had to write the window procedures and dialog procedures to handle them, and for those we didn't know, we read the header files (imagine that) to learn more. We knew our libraries. Our code was lint-clean, small, fast, and tight. Those were the days, and we were the modern-day warriors.

This book will take you back to those days. It will show you what goes on down in the engine room of MFC. This knowledge is good to have. The code examples are in crystal-clear C. This can only make you a stronger programmer, er, I mean, developer.

Its how I always take my Win32 coding.