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The Old New Thing: Practical Development Throughout the Evolution of Windows |
Author: Raymond Chen
Published: 2007-01-06 |
List price: $39.99
Our price: $26.39
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As of: December 03rd, 2008 07:24:36 PM
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Customer comments on this selection.
 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 about many aspects of development, technology and Windows since his first post back in 2003.
This book cherry-picks some of the more interesting and important posts from his blog, edited together to build a comprehensive set of background history and information about why Windows is as it is.
Whilst many developers working on Windows today (and certainly in the future) may never write apps in C/C++ for Win32, the book still provides a great deal of background to help explain how Windows' primary API and it's associated technologies is designed how it is.
One of the most enlightening things to many who perhaps weren't involved in writing apps for Windows back in the Windows 1.0/2.0/3.0/3.1/95 era are the many articles that discuss why Microsoft didn't "fix" what might at first appear to be "obvious" issues in it's API or technologies.
As Raymond clearly points out - Microsoft's obsession with trying to ensure backwards compatability across Windows versions has clearly shaped many parts of Windows and it's API, and is one of the reasons Windows has risen to the position it has - Microsoft goes to extraordinary lengths to NOT break existing apps.
However, at times, it's necessary to cause some breakage. Raymond gives many examples of where things HAD to change in the transition from Win16 to Win32. He also gives several examples of how Vista *HAD* to close down many security holes that it had kept open previously to enable backwards compatability. However, there are many, MANY post-Vista discussions that I hope Raymond includes in subsequent editions or follow-on books of this type.
Thoroughly recommended for anyone building applications on Windows.
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.
There's something for everyone - from nuggets of Windows history, especially the user interface to deep (really, really deep) programming topics. I expect that most people will be interested in the history rather than the details of the message loop. The breadth of treatment and the presentation mean that the book becomes two books in one: a book for a general geek-ish audience, and a book for programmers.
Well written in Chen's usual fluent style, although lacking his acerbic responses to blog comments, which are often the most amusing part of each entry.
 "casual read"
Let me quote some the reviews: "casual read", definitely; "interesting reading", somewhat; "essential reading", not much for programmers until Chapter 7.
 Perfect insight
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!
Definitely enjoyable
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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