C# - web or winforms?

[Stephen Hewitt]

Captain See Sharp wrote:

I would love to see more performance critical apps written in C#.

The real question is would users want to use them. C#, and dotNET in general, has many advantages over native code but, in general, performance and resource usage are not amongst them.

Steve

[huyanping]

Good! The key point is how do you use C#. We should obey some new rules. Generally,It's a new approach.

hello, life

[Stephen Hewitt]

Captain See Sharp wrote:

cout << "Test"; Things like that just does not seem the correct way to make a console input/output class

This syntax has advantages over something like this:

Console.Write(“Test”);

One is that you can chain multiple writes together. Like this for example:

int res = /*Some calculation*/;
cout << “The answer is = “ << res;

The other is that it enables the use of manipulator functions. i.e.

cout << “In hex that is: “ << hex << res;

The biggest advantage is that it allows the mechanism to be extended. For example:

class CMyClass
{
};
 
ostream& operator<<(ostream &stm, const CMyClass &rhs)
{
stm << “CMyClass”;
return stm;
}
 
// Now I can write code like this:
CMyClass mc;
cout << mc;

This is a lame example but hopefully you’ll get the idea. In a way a similar result can be achieved in dotNET by overriding the Object.ToString method but using the C++ method allows the stream mechanism to be extended without modifying the stream classes or the type you’re streaming. This is often a very useful property and an example of the Open Closed Principle[^] It's easy to remember once you get used to it: think of the "<<" as arrows pointing in the direction of information flow.

Captain See Sharp wrote:

Why is it named cout instead of something like ConsoleOut?

To save typing the longer "ConsoleOut" all the time I'd wager.

Captain See Sharp wrote:

Why must they name namespaces "std"???

Namespaces can have any name. std is just the namespace the standard C++ library is in.

Steve

[nilotic]

I began tinkering with WinForms first, with no knowledge of web programming. I wanted some apps, so I made them, and I found myself making nicer GUI's than necessary because its so easy. Great. I then quite upset when I made a website. I reckon most of the provided GUI bits don't work properly with Firefox, and don't render nicely in the Design View. eg. When I put an in, it needed a 'margin' tweak to obey form layout, and I can't see the items within the table panels in either the Form Outline or the properties window. Dreadful. Also I'm a bit upset about CSS not rendering nicely in the Design View, when using themes. All in all I find it hard to believe that VS2005 was designed for Web Apps at all, other than an afterthought, after building the excellent Windows App side of things.

A chance to die; to turn to mode - bowie

[Lost User]

I understand. I was just trying to point out that .NET although more verbose is easier to learn and discover what you need. It takes longer to remember all the abbreviations and little things in C++.

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[Stephen Hewitt]

I guess it a bit of a "religious debate" but I've never had any trouble remembering "cout", "cin" or "std" and what they mean. Your mileage may vary. If I had to find faults in C++ and the standard library they wouldn't even make it on the list.

Steve

[Lost User]

Stephen Hewitt wrote:

I guess it a bit of a "religious debate" but I've never had any trouble remembering "cout", "cin" or "std" and what they mean. Your mileage may vary. If I had to find faults in C++ and the standard library they wouldn't even make it on the list.

Although I have never done any serious programming in C++ I found it easy and natural to use cout, cin, and easily remembered std and the various #includes needed to to basic things. I was just trying to point out the elegance of C# compared to C++. I would very much like to develop some apps in C++ but dealing with the Windows API or MFC is a pain. I also do not like making heavy use of pointers, they are hard to avoid in C++. In C# pointers a very useful for large array coping and image editing and I only need to use them in certain scenarios. I can create a window with a very small amount of code that is very easy to understand. I'm not against C++ at all but I think C# is the way to go for general purpose applications, especially with C# 3.0 on the way. I cant wait to use C# 3.0.

using System.Windows.Forms;

namespace SeeSharpProgram
{
class Program
{
static void Main()
{
Application.Run(new TestForm());
}
}
class TestForm : Form
{
public TestForm()
{
this.Title = "Test Form";
this.Width = 640;
this.Height = 480;
}
}
}

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[Stephen Hewitt]

In C++ there are many ways you could do this depending on what framework your using (MFC, ATL, WTL, Qt, etc…). Some would be just as short and easy to understand. There’s no rule that says you have to use straight Win32 API.

Steve

[Lost User]

Stephen Hewitt wrote:

In C++ there are many ways you could do this depending on what framework your using (MFC, ATL, WTL, Qt, etc…). Some would be just as short and easy to understand. There’s no rule that says you have to use straight Win32 API.

Yes, but there are also things such as properties, indexers, delegates(easier and more functional than raw function pointers), iterators with foreach and creation of enermable classes with the yield keyword. There are also things such as cross language interoperability, metadata, reflection. It all adds up to be a great tool to develop your applications on, even with C++. I'm not really saying C# is better, I'm saying that the CLR is a great foundation to build upon in any language.

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[Stephen Hewitt]

I've got nothing against dotNET in general or C# in particular. There is little doubt that may programmers find life easier with these tools than with C/C++. On the various language features such as, “iterators”, “foreach” and what have you note that C# and C++ have a different philosophy here. In C# such things are first class language features but C++ goes down a different path: make the language flexible enough so that such things can be implemented in libraries and have a standard library which contains the most generally useful. Third parties can also produce such libraries as can the programmer himself. For example, the STL has a well developed iterator concept and the Boost library provides a foreach[^] construct you can use to iterate over collections. C++ is a very flexible langauge in that respect.

Steve