Windows programming with Petzold or Proise? what do you think?

[[praetorian]]

Hi!

Some questions to folks that have read these 2 books:
Charle's Petzolds programming windows (1)
Jeff Proise's programming with mfc (2)

1:
a) Is it possible to read and understand this book without knowing C, but knowing C++?
b) Is this book for newcomers in windows programming?

2.
a) Is it a clear and beginners book for people new to windows programming?

3.
Which one of these books would you suggest if you want to develop nice-looking windows programs?

thanks in advance!

//alex

[abdul]

I don't know about Jeff and Chales assumes that you already know C\C++ when doing Windows programming. In his examples, he puts some hard code and no comments for it because you should have known that when you did simple C or C++.

Maybe somebody else will be able to tell you about Jeff's book because I have not read that.

[CornedBee]

Charles Petzold assumes that you know C, not C++ (he programs in C). Jeff Prosise (his book is not available in german, gotta get it in english...) would probably assume that you know C++, since he uses MFC, a C++ class library. You don't need to know the differences between C and C++ to read his book, because he ONLY uses C++. But in any case, I would suggest that you get the Petzold first in any case, because a good knowledge of the API is essential if you have to debug MFC apps. (My personal experience - believe me ), so you should know the most important differences (like that all variables have to be declared at the start of a block). Just so you can read his code. You can still use C++ syntax when you program pure functional API.

[[praetorian]]

Thanks for the replies!

So, first petzolds book and understand the api even if it's c code in that book and then move over to mfc, right?

[abdul]

It is best and wise thing to learn API first if you have choice of learning either API or MFC. MFC is just an extra evil thing from Microsoft. API is the base of Windows programming, so if you know that, there is nothing else under the API in general.

[[praetorian]]

Can you use api in your c++ programs?

[CornedBee]

Yes, of course. But you need to accept that you'll have a lot of functional programming in your app, not the pure java-like class thing.

[parksie]

You can hide a lot of the API with your own classes that in most cases are better than MFC's

Or in our case, just rewrite the API definitions

[[praetorian]]

you mean that most part of the code will be in functions?

Petzold's book is written with c in mind, but you can if you want to use api in c++ anyway, so I think I'll buy his book, despite this fact. It's only that some things in the book will need be converted to c++........

[Zaei]

Your's and kedaman's project is a beautiful thing, parksie.

Z.

[[praetorian]]

parksie,

I don't have that knowledge needed to rewrite the definitions yet.......but thanks for the suggestion

[abdul]

Originally posted by parksie

Or in our case, just rewrite the API definitions

Why do you need to write your own classes if the API definitions are the same...is it a bit faster or what?

[CornedBee]

parksie, I already wanted to ask that: Why do you use specialized templates instead of overloaded functions?