I had a miserable holiday season. I was busy trying the Rip Van Winkle approach to learning programming, and not accomplishing much. The further I got in to Petzold, the more the behavior of programs diverged from what was described in the text. The programs would compile….but they wouldn’t work. The C language, the compilers (Visual Developer) and Windows itself have all changed since 1999, and the preconditions and and postconditions for Windows function calls that worked in the original, and those that apply now have changed in ways that I don’t have the resources to follow. And that’s if I haven’t committed any typos in entering the programs.

Although many beginning programmer’s texts start with a command-line approach, they don’t facilitate a transition to the Windows environment. I’ve finally found one that does: “Introduction to Windows and Graphics Programming With Visual C++”. by Roger Mayne. This looks like the bridge I have been looking for.

We’ll see how this goes.