Charles Petzold
Charles Petzold
Charles Petzoldis an American programmer and technical author on Microsoft Windows applications. He is also a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional and was named one of Microsoft's seven Windows Pioneers...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionBusinessman
Date of Birth2 February 1953
CountryUnited States of America
Charles Petzold quotes about
design lazy aversion
The human species is often amazingly inventive and industrious but at the same time profoundly lazy. It's very clear that we humans don't like to work. This aversion to work is so extreme - and our ingenuity so acute - that we're eager to devote countless hours designing and building devices that might shave a few minutes off our workday
color decision pixels
Computer monitors can operate in many different video modes. In most cases, the decision about how many pixels and colors to display is yours - but not always.
machines eating programming
Programming in machine code is like eating with a toothpick
messages midi musical natural saved timing transition
MIDI made a natural transition to the PC. The MIDI messages that make up a musical composition can be saved as MIDI files, which are collections of MIDI messages with timing information.
instrument means midi note time
All modern MIDI synthesizers are capable of polyphony, which means they can play more than one note at a time and more than one instrument at a time.
contains electronic file midi music notes particular player roll series type
A MIDI file contains coded instructions to play a particular series of notes on an electronic music synthesizer. A MIDI file is more like a piano roll in a player piano than any type of sound recording.
explore figuring liked various version work
I really liked figuring things out on my own. Early on in the development of a new version of Windows, I would explore it, I would try out various things, I would see what worked, I would see what didn't work.
depth games particular programs require settings system usual
Some programs - especially games - require that your system be set to a particular color depth and resolution. Often such special settings are different from your usual mode, though.
designers great publish
Blend is great for designers because it implements a lot of sophisticated behaviours, but for what I like to do, hand coding XAML is preferable, particularly because I have to publish it.
contain midi musical percussion supports time
Many MIDI files contain entire musical compositions. Because MIDI supports only 16 channels, however, no more than 16 different instruments can play at any time, and one of those is the key-based percussion instrument.
environment window judgment
I felt more like a scientist exploring nature, and Windows was my environment. You dont pass judgment on nature; you just explain how it works.
lunch free-lunch
Free lunches don't come cheap.
machines language assembly
I started out with machine code and assembly language.
choices
You probably don't have much of a choice.