Member Avatar for DevonParsons

Hi Daniweb, I've almost always found solutions for various problems before and have now decided to become a member so I can contribute as well.

I would consider myself a so-so programmer (I understand classes, pointers, matrices, I/O, vectors, and of course structure). I am only able to make code which works with Command Line, however. I want to start basic Windows programming.

However, every time I try to get started I get a bunch of "Ok c&p all this code:

//Garbage code I don't understand
int WinMain...
    //put your code hear!
//more code I don't understand

and that's how you do it!"

This doesn't teach anything, I'm looking for an explanation as to how it works. A line by line tutorial would be nice. Also, often this simply does not work, and I am unable to troubleshoot because I don't understand.

As it goes, right now I have no code with which to start any simple project.

My questions: where can I find code which works? Where can I find an explanation for this code?

I imagine that a lot of programmers face this hurdle at some point so I would like to make this as useful a thread as possible.

If it makes a difference:
Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 Professional Version 9.0.21022.8 RTM
Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5 SP1

Thanks in advance.

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Member Avatar for jonsca

It sounds like you're looking at the Win32 API. The best (intro) tutorial I know of for that is http://www.winprog.org/tutorial/

Keep in mind there are other options like Qt and wxWidgets which are more abstracted and therefore a bit more intuitive to use. There's also WinForms programming which uses a dialect of C++ known as C++/CLI, which has a different syntax and can be daunting (and tough to find tutorials on, thought I've heard the Ivor Horton book is good).

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