Charles announced he isn't likely to write many more programming books in the future due to dwindling book royalties. I suspect the availability of information on Internet has had something to do with that (and of course the rapid change of development technologies). (Although from looking at my purchases at Amazon in 2007, you wouldn't see much of a change in my technology focused book purchasing pattern when compared to previous years).

It's definitely a sad day for Windows users and programmers. Many Windows programs were completed with higher quality and more rapidly as developers had a better understanding of the Windows API thanks to Charles' books. Developers were able to spend time on the functionality rather than the plumbing of a Windows application. (And in some cases, I wish more developers had read the books a bit more carefully!).

I know I owe a lot of my early knowledge of the Windows API to Charles' now classic Programming Windows books.

Thanks Charles!