Lori Pearce: Six Degrees of Separation from David Hasselhoff

I've seen a lot of videos at channel9 and I find it incredible how easy it was to gain free access to computers in the US back in the 80s, even if people complain it wasn't. I wasn't even born in 1980 and while studying my way through high school in Portugal, I only managed to see some computers at my school in 1992/3. And even then, access was extremely limited... it was only in 1996/7 that my parents offered me a programming training course (few people had internet access at where I lived), so there I was learning QUICK BASIC!!! in 1997.

Note to self: blame the parents for not having moved to the US when I was a child ;P.

If you manage the Windows SDK then please update and modernize the old Win32 and COM topics. Many of them are 15 perhaps years old and even contain lots of errors. The samples in this section of the SDK are also either wrong or out -of-date. For example the sample for Windows Tree View Controls (Using a Tree View Control topic) contains an error. Many topics use old-style data-types like "DWORD WINAPI WindowsProcedure(...)", "DWORD main()" or none-64-bitcompliant types or function calls. The samples need certainly updating and fixing.
More importantly though, the topics for WIN32 and COM need to be make easier for a beginner to follow and be written in a tutorial style. It is very difficult to get started programming Windows in C++ and the topics are tooooo wordy, toooo professional and give little information with the way they are written. They always use emphatic and marketing words, and phrases like "increases your productivity", etc, but never give a simple tutorial-like overview. Many time I read a topic and I don't learn anything. Make things simple. Start with an example, explain things that ones should be careful about and then give a reference of all functions and data-types. If you don't believe me, then try to learn COM from your documentation. Not possible. Try to learn Windows (WIN32) C++ programming from the SDK. Not possible. You have to buy a book. Make your topics more human-like, like many open source tutorials that are easy to follow. Your SDK is not suited for learning a new consept. And provide more samples.
Thanks.

You mean  BYTE is no longer published? Man, I have been out of the loop. 

loved this interview!