ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses some of the more original features: Windows naming conventions, numeric constants, and Windows handles. Windows programs are also visually different since a typical Windows application has a graphics window and interactive controls. The chapter introduces the use of these graphical components as well as elements of programming style, such as program comments and assertions notation. Experienced and talented DOS programmers are often intimidated by their first encounter with Windows programs. Windows programming has been described as weird, convoluted, and awkward. In reality Windows programming is not more difficult than DOS programming, although Windows programs, at first, appear more complicated. A programmer used to working in a non-Windows environment will immediately notice that a Windows program has certain unfamiliar elements. One of them is the unusual names assigned to variables. The Windows header files define many numeric constants which can be a source of bewilderment to the uninitiated.
