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Book Review
Visual Basic Programmer's Guide to the Win32 API by Dan Appleman
Recommended
ISBN: 1-562-76287-7       Publisher: Ziff-Davis       Pages: 1518pp       Price: £46-99
Categories:   basic     MS Windows     microsoft    
Reviewed by Roger N Lever in C Vu 8-5 (Jul 1996)
This book is for Visual Basic (VB) programmers who want to tap the power of the Windows API . For C/C++ developers there is an interesting synergy between using VB as a Rapid Application Development ( RAD ) tool and as a front end to a C/C++ Dynamic Link Library ( DLL ). Windows, of course, is a DLL rich environment!

There are some books that become the 'bible' for programmers, Daniel Appleman's original VB book was one such. The bottom line is that if you needed his first book - you need his second. If understanding the Windows API from a VB programmer's perspective is important then this is the book to have.

The content organisation, chapter headings and style is very similar to the first and is composed of four parts;

  1. The Windows API
  2. Windows API functions
  3. Windows Messages
  4. Real World API Programming Revisited
As per the title the book concentrates on Win32, plus some of the migration issues from Win16 and the only thing the 'converted' will find missing is the raster and palette sections. This is largely due to the different architecture and operation between Windows 3.1 and Windows 95/ NT . The other notable omission is the lack of a free cbk.vbx which shipped previously, the OCX equivalents dwcbk32d.ocx and dwsbc32d.ocx are available in the design environment only. Appleman provides a rationale for this omission but this does not affect the overall assessment - recommended.
Other Authors with the same surname

Appleman
Developing ActiveX Components with Visual Basic 5.0 by Dan Appleman [Recommended]  (Reviewed Nov 1997)

Last Update - 13 May 2001.

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