Old New Thing, The: Practical Development Throughout the Evolution of Windows

by Raymond Chen

"Raymond Chen is the original raconteur of Windows." --Scott Hanselman, ComputerZen.com "Raymond has been at Microsoft for many years and has seen many nuances of Windows that others could only ever hope to get a glimpse of. With this book, Raymond shares his knowledge, experience, and anecdotal stories, allowing all of us to get a better understanding of the operating system that affects millions of people every day. This book has something for everyone, is a casual read, and I highly recommend it!" --Jeffrey Richter, Author/Consultant, Cofounder of Wintellect "Very interesting read. Raymond tells the inside story of why Windows is the way it is." --Eric Gunnerson, Program Manager, Microsoft Corporation "Absolutely essential reading for understanding the history of Windows, its intricacies and quirks, and why they came about." --Matt Pietrek, MSDN Magazine 's Under the Hood Columnist "Raymond Chen has become something of a legend in the software industry, and in this book you'll discover why. From his high-level reminiscences on the design of the Windows Start button to his low-level discussions of GlobalAlloc that only your inner-geek could love, The Old New Thing is a captivating collection of anecdotes that will help you to truly appreciate the difficulty inherent in designing and writing quality software." --Stephen Toub, Technical Editor, MSDN Magazine Why does Windows work the way it does? Why is Shut Down on the Start menu? (And why is there a Start button, anyway?) How can I tap into the dialog loop? Why does the GetWindowText function behave so strangely? Why are registry files called "hives"? Many of Windows' quirks have perfectly logical explanations, rooted in history. Understand them, and you'll be more productive and a lot less frustrated. Raymond Chen--who's spent more than a decade on Microsoft's Windows development team--reveals the "hidden Windows" you need to know. Chen's engaging style, deep insight, and thoughtful humor have made him one of the world's premier technology bloggers. Here he brings together behind-the-scenes explanations, invaluable technical advice, and illuminating anecdotes that bring Windows to life--and help you make the most of it. A few of the things you'll find

Genres: Programming, Technology, Nonfiction, Computer Science, History, Software, Computers

560 pages, Paperback

First published January 6, 2006

Reviews

[Markus · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was interested in the book because of the interesting anecdotes shared by Mr. Chen in his blog, which shares the title with this book. I have to admit that I was not prepared for the amount of C++ and i386 assembly listings this book contained, making it quite a bit duller than I imagined.

There was plenty of nice anecdotes here, like the fact that the registry 'hive' got it's name by a developer who wanted to annoy his colleague who was afraid of bees. I think it would have served readers well to write two books instead; one for the stories and another for the technical details of WinAPI.

[Ondrej Sykora · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tales from the history of Windows development, combined with explanations of how things work in the window manager and the kernel. If you're writing Windows apps, the book is extremely interesting, but it is also very interesting for general software engineering audience, to understand and appreciate the amount of work and analysis that Microsoft has done when developing Windows.

[Oleg Shimchik · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've been wanting to read this book for a long time. Perhaps, it would've been more relevant if I read it 10 years ago.
"The Old New Thing" by Raymond Chen consists of 3 layers or themes:
1) General anecdotes from the history of Windows;
2) Some technical details of how certain applications messed up the use of WinAPI and how the Compatibility team ended up changing the implementation to make them work.
3) Guides for how to properly use certain parts of WinAPI.

The book's preface contains a table outlining which chapters should be read if you are after a certain thing. However, it's somewhat daunting to flip back every time to the preface to confirm whether you should continue reading a certain chapter or not.

Most of the material is either outdated or not particular interesting unless you are seriously into Windows API programming. And by that, I mean if you are into Windows 98 or Windows 2000 API. The latest version that is mentioned there is Windows Vista and only briefly. So reading sometimes feels like scavenging through some outdated equipment to find something that might be interesting or useful.

Overall, for someone who started programming back at the beginning of the millennium, this book gave me a warm hit of nostalgia, however there is barely anything practical that I was able to take from this book other than catering for an incorrect use of your software is a slippery slope.

[Eskild · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fascinating insight into the quirks of modern OS development.

The book goes into a fair bit of technical detail, complete with C++, C and assembly source code listings. Unlike a programming textbook, however, Chen's writing is never boring. Interesting and sometimes funny anecdotes are sprinkled throughout, giving context to the issue being discussed.

While naturally focused on MS-DOS and Windows, it still manages to be very interesting for a Unix user and developer like myself, and while some of the intricacies of the Windows API aren't all that useful nor relatable to me, there were only a few places where the discussion was not something any developer could in some way relate to.

For me, this is mostly a fascinating piece of software development history, and one I'd thoroughly recommend anyone interested in such things give a read.

[Phyllis · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you are a developer, or at least have more understanding of programming than I do (a hair above zero), I think this would be a pretty interesting and informative read. Frankly, I ended up skimming most of it because I was just in over my head. As a marketer, I did get some insights into both user behavior and software programmer behavior and I certainly have more sympathy for what Microsoft has to deal with as an intermediary between both. The writing is breezy and probably as entertaining as a history about Windows will get from a developer's perspective (i.e., not too much from the internal Microsoft politics end).

Full disclosure, I've known the author a long time, which is why I was interested in the book in the first place, so I probably wouldn't have picked it up otherwise.

[Andy Parkes · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was a bit wary about buying this. I've been an occasional reader of Raymond's blog for years which made me very aware this book had the potential to be well beyond my limited understanding of programming concepts and I was kind of right. While I did enjoy this overall there were big chunks of it that I just couldn't follow. That's not because of how it was written, just because the technical parts were beyond me. That said, the bits I did understand very very enjoyable and hearing about some of the reasons why certain parts of Windows are the way they are was a lot of fun.

[MB · Rating 4 out of 5]

Many parts of this book were utterly familiar and timeless. Others (the very Windows-specific parts) were nearly incomprehensible. But Chen definitely knows his stuff and has been around the block a few times. This is great software perspective, though I had to skim some parts. And I'm very glad I don't work on user software.

[Sean McBride · Rating 5 out of 5]

Extremely entertaining series of anecdotes on the development and evolution of the Windows operating system. The level of care / kludges it takes to ensure backwards compatibility is astounding / horrifying.

[Ken · Rating 4 out of 5]

Truly enjoyable for developers who love to geek out on esoteric stories of working on the world's most used operating system. (I am secretly hoping Raymond would publish his "Debug This!" stories someday).

[Paweł Rusin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic book on the development and history of Windows and its API's. A lot of great code snippets and a lot of great anecdotes.

[Brad Davis]

This is a sometimes entertaining journey down the ins and outs of windows programming and its tortured history. However, around two thirds of the way into the book I started to thing about the phrase "The common denominator in all your failed relationships is you."

I like Raymond's style, but sometimes his tone ("The didn't read section 17 of the DPMI spec?!") comes across as a little condescending. I suspect he may be a little too steeped in the environment he's been in for so long that it's hard to realize that there are better ways to develop than against a 20 year old API is starting to look like Tetsuo in the last 20 minutes of Akira.

There are only so many times that you can read 'lots of people got this wrong' in reference to an particular call or a common check done by many programs before you start to wonder if maybe there shouldn't have been a better way.

[Ushan · Rating 3 out of 5]

How the Windows API came to be, and why it is the way it is. If Microsoft has its way, perhaps eventually Windows will be emulated inside .NET/Midori the same way DOS is being emulated inside Windows - but .NET is already as bizarrely grotesque as Windows. The book is a compilation of entries from the author's blog; unfortunately, it has nothing about Putin creatively interpreting the Russian constitution as if it were an incompletely specified application programming interface.

[Joaobispo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very informative and occasionally funny, I read it for the "inside information" regarding the development of Windows, since 1.0 to XP.

I skipped the parts with code details about the GUI interface, I was only interested in the "history" of Windows. This is where the book excels, explaining why sometimes things are the way they are in Windows (yep, there can be very good reasons why this and that bug are still there).

[Joshua · Rating 4 out of 5]

I work with Raymond regularly, and above I all, I really enjoy his wit (especially as he applies it to sharing his wealth of experience and expertise). This book can get pretty techie at times, but it's constructed in such a way that you can take from it what you like and move on. Definitely worth reading if you're interested in Microsoft history and/or the Microsoft development platform.

[Vasil Kolev · Rating 4 out of 5]

I definitely feel sorry for all the people that had (and still have) to develop under Windows. In this book I saw the decisions and rationales behind them, and most of them sucked horribly.
Otherwise, the book is interesting to read, and the format of a lot of short stories makes it very fast to go through.

[Deanna Earley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book with lots of anecdotes and little stories, as well as a great amount of detail into the inner workings of Windows.

[Nihi · Rating 4 out of 5]

A terrifying glimpse of the mad and perverse world of Windows programming, along with some insightful tidbits on the psychology of dialog boxes.

[Satyen Rai · Rating 4 out of 5]

A nice journey down the history of Windows. A very good explanation of why some of the more painful things about Windows are the way they are - not that they are any less painful now. :-)

[Alistair Young · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fascinating, useful, and funny tour through the development and inner workings of Windows. Don't forget to read the downloadable bonus chapters, too.

[Ruslan]

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