Appendix B. Selecting a Game Development Tool

The programming techniques described in this book rely on the C++ programming language in a Windows environment. This means that you use C++ code to develop programs that run on the Windows operating system. In order to compile C++ code into an executable Windows program, you need a C++ compiler that targets the Windows operating system. Fortunately, there are several C++ development tools available that support Windows.

You might think that you can use any C++ compiler to build games for Windows, but in order to support Windows a compiler must include the Windows API (Application Programming Interface). From a programming perspective, the Windows API is a set of unique functions and data structures ...

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