Windows 64-bit Assembly Language Programming Quick Start: Intel X86-64, SSE, AVX

Get the book. Explanations are concise, but for the most part sufficient if you're ready to re-read sections. Variations of a single line echo program comprise most of the examples in the book, which gets boring but obviates re-invention of entire subroutines of code for simple tasks (less of a problem in higher languages), and is helpful to demonstrate linking and library building as well as teaching new commands and approaches. There are a couple errors in the example code as printed (possibly not present in the downloads), specifically where I cannot recall. One was use of an incorrect register as operand. Actually, finding and fixing these errors was an instructional exercise. My background: I'm not a computer professional, but I used to program games in Commodore 64 BASIC as a kid and have had introductory exposure to 8-bit assembly.

Book was OK. However, there is no way given to contact the author nor is there a web site to document errors. Also, the publishing company does not appear to exist. No address or web site given for GAUL publishing

Very clear information

Great book !

This book contains some useful information about assembly programming, such as tables of information about the various registers. As the title suggests, it does indeed help you quickly start writing and executing assembly code. However, the book also has flaws that make me hesitant to place any trust in it. For example, an early sample program (pp. 44-45) calls the Windows API function WriteConsoleA. Microsoft's documentation for this function indicates that the function takes five arguments. However, the book's sample code only passes four. The author fails to even mention this discrepancy; he merely states that "[o]nly four arguments are needed". It could very well be that the callee doesn't use the fifth parameter, so that you can get away with not passing a value, but relying on such a thing is just asking for trouble. Other sample programs later in the book contain similar flaws. The author's promotion of reckless practices like this makes me question the book's reliability.

The author teaches assembly incrementally just like a new language should be taught. It's not about a catalog of opcodes, Windows APIs or ABI rules. It doesn't try to push any other tool that is not freely available in the Microsoft website (search for Build Tools for Visual Studio 2019). It is a build up from the classical Hello Word to more interesting applications.

I am not a developer so this may be easier to digest for people with coding experience. The book is straight to the point which I like, but I often felt lost due to the minimal explanations. Instructions for the examples could use more detail. Once you start to feel lost, there is no catching up. Fortunately the book wasn’t too expensive.

I always had a fondness for mainframe assembler language programming and this is a good book to read about how it’s done on PCs.