Comments about oreilly Win32 API Programming with Visual Basic:

All programmers know the complex of the application programming interface (API).

i buy 4 books for api programming ,but this book has many features such as the simplicity ,excellent explain, simple examples.

in actualy i understand the api from this book.

realiy Dr.Roman always on the top .

note :i think this book is not good for profissionals.

Comments about oreilly Win32 API Programming with Visual Basic:

Like Bruce McKinney I did not read the entire book.

Unlike Bruce I was very worried by the sample chapter.

The author is making a song and dance about GetWindowText moving the location of a String



cTitle = GetWindowText(hnd, sText, 255)

sText = Left$(sText, cTitle)



- when it is the Left$ reassignment that is moving the StrPtr

This is such a fundamental error, from which he draws such wide inferences, that it amazes me that the chapter has not been radically revised.

Comments about oreilly Win32 API Programming with Visual Basic:

Contrary to what everyone else has to say, I found this book better than Dan Appleman's book on API. Appleman's book contains myriads of API documentation that is best used as reference material, with not as much description of the concepts. I fervently admire Dan Appleman for all his books and products Desaware brings out every year, but I must thank Mr.Roman for giving us a very vernacular commentary on the intimidating issues incidental to using API. For instance, the sixth chapter on Strings was a treat. I mostly re-read the first six chapters of the book late at night like they were bed-time stories. Although I haven't completed reading the whole book, I come back again and again to a select few topics every now and then. For instance, he explains the two's complement better than Hank Marquis did in his VB Developer's Toolkit. Then, I never found a book that took you on an inside tour of the PE file format. Admittedly, a few portions are really redundant - the seventh chapter on system information, the chapter on error handling is a little elusive, and chapters ten throught thirteen are a little too brief. Also, chapter nineteen on hooks leaves you hungry, but then I wanted something just like this - a little lightweight. Since I first came accross the chapter String on my MSDN a few years back, it has been sitting there in my favorites. I love this book better than a few others that I've picked up on the API. I rate this book the second after Charles Petzold's Programming Windows (of course, which has nothing to do with VB). I'd been thinking for a long time about congratulating the author for such a wonderful book. And it feels so ticklish to be writing a comment after Bruce McKinney, one of the icons I rever as a God, on the same subject. Bruce, can I say Hi! Do you hear that? Feels like a dream come true, like I am almost meeting you. If you ever come accross this comment, I am one of your ardent devotees.

Comments about oreilly Win32 API Programming with Visual Basic:

The applications I am responsible for incorporate a lot of the Win32 API, and I purchased this book believing that it would serve as an excellent resource. However, I am sorry to say that I have not received very much new information from this book. I am frustrated by the author's pretentiousness (he is an excellent programmer, just ask him), and his constant disclaimers and qualifiers about the information in the book. For example, the line "... for the sake of space and clarity of purpose, we will not employ in the examples in this book." Then why did he just mention it?

I really wish Mr. Roman would not tell me about things that he isn't going to cover, and spend his time thoroughly covering the topics instead. I don't need a high-level overview - I need an in depth resource and reference guide. I can get an overview from Microsoft marketing materials. The book reads like a collection of notes-to-self and afterthoughts, glued together with self-aggrandizing transitions and teasers about what's going to be covered next. The problem is, that it never gets covered.

This book is the poorest example in my large O'Reilly collection.