Hey, I just finished reading a C++ language book, Teach Yourself C++ in 21 Days, and I''m planning on going to windows programming next. However, I''m not sure if I should get a book that teaches specific Win32 programming or go ahead and get a Win32 Game Developing book such as "Tips and Tricks of the Windows Game Guru". I don''t really see how there could be much differance, if any, in the syntax between the two. So would it be safe to go ahead and get the Win32 Game Develeping book and start Win32 programming from there? Also, I hear people talking about learning complex data structures. So far all I have done is simply linked lists. How imperative are these more complex data structures in beginning simple Win32 game programming. I was hoping I could avoid having to create a tree data structure for a simple game like pong in order for me to do more research on them while learning Win32 programming. Is there a good book that extensively covers just data structures; it seems like that would be worth my money to get. Thanks for the help

It''s probably better to get a win32 game programming book, as it will be more focused on the facts that you need (unless you''re planning to start an application programming career soon).

For now, stick to simple data structures like arrays. You might want to look up some information on the standard template library (STL) which is a major help in C++ coding.

The main reason to use things like tree structures is that they are faster to search, so in beginners games, where speed is not essential (pong can only be played so fast), they are unnecessary. Put them on your "things to learn" list for the future :-)