Windows or directx

[gangsta gama]

Hello. I have c++ down pretty good. I am wondering If I should do windows programming first or directx first. And where should I go to get free or cheap, and good ebooks for windows programming and directx. I cant seem to find any good ebooks. Thank you.

[Ancient Dragon]

>>I cant seem to find any good ebooks. Thank you.
You probably won't find any free ones either. Authors don't write books for the hell of it. They do it to make money. You will get better books at amazon.com or your local book store.

[gangsta gama]

Ancient Dragon, do you have any books that you recemend?

[Ancient Dragon]

There is a whole thread just about books in the Read Me threads at the top of the c++ forum

[CoolGamer48]

You need some basic knowledge of the Windows API to use DirectX - so either way you should check this out: http://winprog.org/tutorial/simple_window.html.

Buying books is a very good idea. I haven't read any books on the Windows API. A book on DirectX I did read was Beginning Game Programming, by John S. Harbour. It begins with some of the Windows API, but its mostly DirectX focused. I can't say I was extremely thrilled with it - I ran into some problems with DirectSound. But it was pretty good for most of the other things. FYI, it uses C, not C++, but I didn't mind. It gave me practice converting the C code into C++.

As for what to use, what types of programs do you intend on making? If you want to make games, or perhaps apps with your own style GUI - use DirectX. If you want to make non-game programs that look like Windows programs, use the Windows API.

[gangsta gama]

Thank you CoolGamer48. Ill do that.