Retirement and Realignment | Hacker News Reader

Retirement and Realignment

charlespetzold.com

144 pointsMikusR16 comments

It’s hard to overstate how much of a critical resource Programming Windows was to this C programmer straight out of university with only Unix skills, needing to find a programming job (which, back then were ALL Windows). The spine on my copy disintegrated and I had it spiral bound, and probably still have it on a shelf somewhere, it having survived several apartment moves. I didn’t realize he was still at Microsoft. Jeez! I thought he’d be kicking it in the Caribbean living on royalties by now!

Lots of fond memories Programming Windows 95 with his book at my desk and the Codewright (I think that's what it was called) editor on my computer (pre-Visual Studio days).

Same, I basically taught myself C from that book!

I love Charle's book, Code. Thank you for writing it.

http://www.charlespetzold.com/books/#code

Code is just phenomenal.

For those who haven't read it, the book is essentially about how computers work, from first principles up to integrated circuits and high-level programming languages. What makes the book special is the excellent writing: it has an engaging, conversational style, and is accessible to a non-technical audience.

If he's taking more time for himself (and hopefully, to write more books, as indicated in the post), that's awesome.

Code is a great book. I've also been supplementing it with the From Nand 2 Tetris course[1] in order to have some applied experience with the concepts.

[1]https://www.nand2tetris.org/.

> I am making these decisions so that I can shift my full attention to a long-term project to write several books on various milestones in the historical foundations of computing, of which The Annotated Turing was the first and Computer of the Tides will (I hope) be the second.

I wasn't aware of The Annotated Turing. Can't wait to read these. Must be awesome coming from someone who has taught and guided millions.

> And who knows? Perhaps my best and most enduring work is yet to come!

Of course, can't think of it any other way!

Congrats to Charles and loved his last sentence: "And who knows? Perhaps my best and most enduring work is yet to come!".

If he produces something better than either Code or The Annotated Turing he'll be doing very well. I'm almost tempted to buy that ancient Windows book he wrote except that I have more than enough things I ought to read already.

I suspect many careers and projects were started by copying the event loop out of Programming Windows.

The Annotated Turing might be assigned in college classes 100 years from now. It is an excellent exegesis of a landmark in mathematical history—in history, period: http://theannotatedturing.com

I still remember the first Windows programming book I read. It's Charles Petzold's Programming Windows. It was amazing. Really showed how Windows work.

Same here! The guy is amazing

Congratulations. I think it's commendable you are going to spend the next phase of your life writing books for others to learn from.

34 year career, WOOT!

Good for the author. I hope retirement is fulfilling, long and well-financed.

Thanks for all the help your books have given me. Enjoy your retirement.

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