WE FEEL PRETTY FORTUNATE. During the past three decades, we have traveled the world teaching programmers what we know. Between the two of us, we have led hundreds of classes and taught thousands of professional programmers. We enjoy working with the people who are inventing the future, andwehave been fortunate enough to have been at the cutting edge of several waves of innovation in software development technology. We have learned much from our students; this book is one way to thank them.
Weworked together on the first book published on the subject of Windows programming, Programmer’s Guide to Windows (Sybex, 1987). Long out of print, in its day the book helpedmanyprogrammers tackle the challenges presented by Windows Version 1.01. That version of Windows came out in November 1985. In those days, developers used computers running MS-DOS with no hard drive and no network.
Things have changed a lot since then. Today’s pocket-size computers have more RAM and CPU power than a 1980s desktop system. Today’s desktop systems havemorecomputingpowerthan the 1980s mainframes. Along the way, development tools have improved: online programming references, context-sensitive help, and graphical editors. As an industry, we are much more productive today than we were back then.
