On Monday 02 April 2007 06:40, Jason Ward wrote:
Ok I want to start developing for reactos. I will use NASM. Not C/C++.
So how do I start? do you send me a list of things you want done and then I do them? It would take me too long to go through all the source code so I figured that I could just write whatever you ask me to.
I am a Com Sci undergraduate. I can program in RosAsm so I shouldn't have too much trouble converting to NASM. I can read C++. I can program in python, some basic, pascal. And I am learning Java in University.
I have next to no knowledge of the win32api. I know quite a bit of OpenGL though.
First things first, get yourself a copy of theForger's Tutorial: http://www.winprog.org/tutorial/ Then a copy of Petzold's "Programming Windows". It will give you a start in understanding the Win32 API, which is nothing like the POSIX API.
Ignore books like "Windows 2000 Developer's Guide" and so - they tend to be MFC-heavy and Win32 API-light. MFC's only useful if you're intending to do serious Windows applications development, and so, it's useless for an MS Windows-class operating system project like ReactOS. And besides, MFC's only available for people who pay the big bucks for Visual Studio - it's Microsoft's proprietary extensions built on top of the Win32 API.
To get your head around the ReactOS kernel, you should take a look at Gary Nebbett's "Windows NT/2000 Native API Reference". Russinovich and Solomon's "Windows Internals" is a good start to get your head around the MS WinNT structure/architecture - it used to be "Inside Windows [NT|2000|etc]".
Hope this helps.
Wesley Parish
No Directx knowledge.