The most important choice in writing is not what you say, it's what you don't say
"The most important choice in writing is not what you say.
It's what you don't say."
Eric Gunnerson gave me that advice when I was writing
my book.
It's sort of the writing version of
"You don't know what you do
until you know what you don't do."
That's why
I'll write
Of course, you probably wonder this magical pfl comes from.
It comes from the Multilanguage Object in mlang.
IMLangFontLink2 *pfl;
CoCreateInstance(CLSID_CMultiLanguage, NULL,
CLSCTX_ALL, IID_IMLangFontLink2, (void**)&pfl);
...
pfl->Release();
and not
The pfl variable we've been using is an interface
pointer to the IMLangFontLink2 interface.
We obtain this pointer by calling the CoCreateInstance
function, asking for the object whose class ID is
CLSID_CMultiLanguage
(defined in the mlang.h header file)
and specifying the interface ID (IID) of IID_IMLangFontLink2.
The interface ID is a 128-bit value that uniquely identifies an
interface;
we use it here to specify that we wish to have access to the
IMLangFontLink2 interface.
Since COM uses explicit reference counting, we must remember to
call the IUnknown::Release method when we are finished
with the interface pointer.
Each call to the
IUnknown::Release method decrements the reference count
by one, and when the reference count drops to zero,
the object is destroyed.
IMLangFontLink2 *pfl;
CoCreateInstance(CLSID_CMultiLanguage, NULL,
CLSCTX_ALL, IID_IMLangFontLink2, (void**)&pfl);
...
pfl->Release();
This is why I hate reading technical books.
People think it's better to write fifty words when ten are enough,
that you should explain everything in excruciatingly tedious detail
just in case there's a reader out there who sees the word
CoCreateInstance and says,
"Gosh, I don't know what that is,
and I'm going to declare this book useless unless it explains
everything from first principles."
What next?
"The left open brace begins a block of statements"?
