How relevant is Win32 programming to modern professionals?

Question

As a big fan of Charles Petzold's books Code and The Annotated Turing I came across his book Programming Windows which teaches Win32 programming in C. I am a freshman computer science student who learned C first, but I use C# and .NET for Windows programming now, so I was wondering if Win32 is still relevant to professional Windows programs. Would it be worth it to me, as a student who wants to program Windows applications, to learn the Win32 API to the depth that the book covers?

Answer 1

In my opinion, no. I learned it a long time ago, so you wouldn't have to!

I think it's great that you learned C first, and I'd keep writing C programs now and then, but I don't see why the win32 API would be useful to dig into. Honestly, it was a big mess.

Answer 2

Some stuff can not be done without win api calls but with each version of .net those things become less and less so no i would not learn the win api if i where you..

Answer 3

It really depends on the kinds of applications you want to develop. For most purposes these days, C# and .NET are completely suitable. However, there are certain kinds of applications that need as few dependencies as possible (shell extensions come to mind) that are not practical to do as .NET applications. For those you would need Win32.

As always, it pays to have at least a basic understanding of Win32 even if you're using .NET for most of your work.

Answer 4

I completely agree with what Joel Spolsky writes in one of his many great articles. I think it is crucial to know the lower layers of the machine not only to be able to write quality code but to be able to solve problems that will inevitably appear.

So, YES, it is important to at least know the basics of WIN32 API maybe not in depths but at least to know it's there, at the base of everything you will code.

Answer 5

Unless you need some functionality that is not in the .NET Framework (such as getting detailed info on printer drivers), no. That's about 99% (of course, an arbitrary value I just made up) of what you'll do.

Even if you were using Win32 and not .NET, is there really a need to learn the same depth as the book? Browse thru the sections, learn that if you encounter some problem in the future you know where to look for it. Then stop. Go in depth when you need it or have the free time.

Answer 6

You have to know it exists, since most of the native functions of more "advanced" managed language end up calling them.

Plus it can be encapsulated in script languages like Autoit with DllCall

Answer 7

I don't really think "learning Win32 API" is realistic for anyone. The APIs (yeah, there's more than one) are huge, and you will hardly ever need to know all of them in detail. I would recommend reading up on some basics (i.e. Window creation, window messaging, window procedures, maybe some GDI, etc.) and using MSDN to look up the rest whenever you need it.

Answer 8

Definatly learn the basics as AlexDrenea mentions. Whilst .NET sheilds you from alot of Win32 API Calls. Win32 API is so enormous your bound to run into situations where .NET hasn't wrapped it for you.

A real life common situation sort arrows on ListViewColumns

Answer 9

As per Greg's comment, it is to some extent domain dependent. I do a lot of Windows CE / mobile programming, where .NET is too hoggish for many devices and other frameworks such as MFC aren't fully implemented. In this context, much of Win32 is still very relevent.

That said, I wouldn't go learning it all upfront, I'd simply go through the basics, and dig out the rest as and when I needed it. The documentation and examples out there are good enough for this approach, as is the online help available from communities such as this.

Answer 10

It's very relevant if you are writing C# on Windows. Not all the features of the Win32 have been exposed via the .Net libraries. A concrete example of this is the WM_SETREDRAW message technique I describe here: WM_SETREDRAW. It's also needed at other times for control focus issues.

Also, understanding how Win32 and Windows work will give you a better understanding of various aspects of C#/.Net such as:

• What does Control.Invoke() actually do?
• What is the difference between Control.BeginInvoke and Control.Invoke?
• What actually causes my control's events to fire, e.g. OnClick etc and how can I debug that.

That said, WPF changes all this and if you are only writing .Net 3/3.5 code then my argument loses some its relevance.

Answer 11

I think it's already been answered but if you do .NET 2.0 development or anything winforms in .NET, you're bound to run into a lot of problems with how some parts of the framework is wrapping win32 and mfc and you'll need to dig into that to actually get stuff working as intended.

Answer 12

This has been discussed many times on Professional Win32 api Newsgroup ( news://comp.os.ms-windows.programmer.win32)

(by the greatest gurus and best-sellers authors (Petzold, Russinovich, etc) in the world...)

Answer 13

If you're trying to solve Business Problems, then there's better tools out there than C for programming Win32 systems. Clarion. Delphi. And others I have no doubt.

But I guess for learning how things work you're in good stead with C.

Answer 14

I think it's important to learn the basics. If you learned just enough to display a window with some fields, some buttons, and a menu. Maybe draw something in a separate window. It would help you learn the fundamentals of how Windows is really working. I believe understanding the message loop and the realization that almost everything you see is a window are fundamental things that everyone should know. My eyes were really opened the first time I realized that a button was it's own window. It then helps you understand that features of things can be turned on and off by sending these windows messages. Subclassing windows let's you get access to features not exposed to you in things like .NET or VB Classic and let's you enhance the window's functionality.

Answer 15

I'm still earning part of my money using it. We do have a C IDE which is based on the WinAPI. It's now around for 15 years or so, and still running ;-). The complete download of it is around 5 MB for that you do not get anything in the .NET world. So for us it's still a valuable thing....