what do you whink should be my next step as MFC developer?
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I have been working with MFC for many years. I know the library and specially my way around to make my programs. Right now my career is not very into programming so I'm not over the newest and biggest wave around. Basically I’m programming for my pleasure and maintaining some programs I have. My doubts arise when you start seen winRT, .net and all those fireworks that we see every day. I want to keep doing what I do, but not be a dinosaur that someday realizes that it’s like still programming for Windows 98. What are your opinins and recommendations as what should be my next step (MFC, WinRT, TheBestFramerorkEver, etc.)
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I have been working with MFC for many years. I know the library and specially my way around to make my programs. Right now my career is not very into programming so I'm not over the newest and biggest wave around. Basically I’m programming for my pleasure and maintaining some programs I have. My doubts arise when you start seen winRT, .net and all those fireworks that we see every day. I want to keep doing what I do, but not be a dinosaur that someday realizes that it’s like still programming for Windows 98. What are your opinins and recommendations as what should be my next step (MFC, WinRT, TheBestFramerorkEver, etc.)
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I have been working with MFC for many years. I know the library and specially my way around to make my programs. Right now my career is not very into programming so I'm not over the newest and biggest wave around. Basically I’m programming for my pleasure and maintaining some programs I have. My doubts arise when you start seen winRT, .net and all those fireworks that we see every day. I want to keep doing what I do, but not be a dinosaur that someday realizes that it’s like still programming for Windows 98. What are your opinins and recommendations as what should be my next step (MFC, WinRT, TheBestFramerorkEver, etc.)
If you're a long time Windows/MFC programmer get away from Microsoft stuff for a while. It's very easy to get wedded to a particular vendor's tools and end up locked into their corporate strategy. Then when they bugger off in a different direction you end up trying to get up to speed with something else fast. So spread your wings a bit... - Pick up a linux or FreeBSD distribution and see how you can write code for them and how it's different/same as for Windows - Grab a portable application framework (WxWidgets is good if you're well used to MFC) and see how you can build it and use it - Learn another language like Python or Haskell. Python's a surprisingly close to C++ despite looking totally different and Haskell's a completely different programming model - Reads loads of books about how to write large systems and see how that's different from how you write small ones - Find an Open Source project that sounds interesting and a bit outside your comfort zone to expose you to how other people write code (get prepared to say WTF? and Ugh! a lot) - If you REALLY want to stay programming just for Windows start writing the odd app in C rather than C++. Then try VB to see how that's different Er, sorry, rambling, will stop now. Good luck! Ash
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I have been working with MFC for many years. I know the library and specially my way around to make my programs. Right now my career is not very into programming so I'm not over the newest and biggest wave around. Basically I’m programming for my pleasure and maintaining some programs I have. My doubts arise when you start seen winRT, .net and all those fireworks that we see every day. I want to keep doing what I do, but not be a dinosaur that someday realizes that it’s like still programming for Windows 98. What are your opinins and recommendations as what should be my next step (MFC, WinRT, TheBestFramerorkEver, etc.)
You may like to look at C#, which should be fairly easy for you as an MFC developer. .NET Book Zero[^] by Charles Petzold is a great introduction, and these tutorials[^] on MSDN are quite helpful. Once you feel comfortable with C# and .NET, you can move on to WPF or ASP.NET, but of course, it all depends on where you want to be in the future.
Binding 100,000 items to a list box can be just silly regardless of what pattern you are following. Jeremy Likness
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If you're a long time Windows/MFC programmer get away from Microsoft stuff for a while. It's very easy to get wedded to a particular vendor's tools and end up locked into their corporate strategy. Then when they bugger off in a different direction you end up trying to get up to speed with something else fast. So spread your wings a bit... - Pick up a linux or FreeBSD distribution and see how you can write code for them and how it's different/same as for Windows - Grab a portable application framework (WxWidgets is good if you're well used to MFC) and see how you can build it and use it - Learn another language like Python or Haskell. Python's a surprisingly close to C++ despite looking totally different and Haskell's a completely different programming model - Reads loads of books about how to write large systems and see how that's different from how you write small ones - Find an Open Source project that sounds interesting and a bit outside your comfort zone to expose you to how other people write code (get prepared to say WTF? and Ugh! a lot) - If you REALLY want to stay programming just for Windows start writing the odd app in C rather than C++. Then try VB to see how that's different Er, sorry, rambling, will stop now. Good luck! Ash
Thank you for your point of view. It surprices me that your recommendation is not in MS world. I like C++ as a language because for me it feels natural to me. I have programmed in many languages, some high level, others not so much, but I always come back to C++. I would like to know if there other adventages to WxWidgets besides portability becasuse most of my programming has been for windows, and my target users use windows for now. I have a lot of code in MFC, some programs will stay there until they die, others I would like to evaluate migrating to other frameworks, to take advantage of what the future brings (mobile, touch, etc). The problem right now I see is that many people are saying that this is dead and that is the futures and so on. Most is marketing but in the end I don't clearly see that MS is giving a long life to MFC. On the other hand, going to WinRT, it feels like as an experiment that could be dropped on the next release as we have seen many times. WxWidgets on the other hand has been for some time, but never tried. I think it will be arround for some years from now.
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You may like to look at C#, which should be fairly easy for you as an MFC developer. .NET Book Zero[^] by Charles Petzold is a great introduction, and these tutorials[^] on MSDN are quite helpful. Once you feel comfortable with C# and .NET, you can move on to WPF or ASP.NET, but of course, it all depends on where you want to be in the future.
Binding 100,000 items to a list box can be just silly regardless of what pattern you are following. Jeremy Likness
Thanks, I've neved done C# probably becase of confort. When you know how to do it in C++ why bother. Well for some projects this has been a good desicion, but for others probably was an oportunity lost. Next time I have a chance I will put the effort to learn it.
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Thanks, I've neved done C# probably becase of confort. When you know how to do it in C++ why bother. Well for some projects this has been a good desicion, but for others probably was an oportunity lost. Next time I have a chance I will put the effort to learn it.
It depends on what you want to be able to do... a lot of new applications are skipping C++ and going right to C#, so if you want to be competitive in the market as a programmer, then learning C# would be a good idea.
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Thank you for your point of view. It surprices me that your recommendation is not in MS world. I like C++ as a language because for me it feels natural to me. I have programmed in many languages, some high level, others not so much, but I always come back to C++. I would like to know if there other adventages to WxWidgets besides portability becasuse most of my programming has been for windows, and my target users use windows for now. I have a lot of code in MFC, some programs will stay there until they die, others I would like to evaluate migrating to other frameworks, to take advantage of what the future brings (mobile, touch, etc). The problem right now I see is that many people are saying that this is dead and that is the futures and so on. Most is marketing but in the end I don't clearly see that MS is giving a long life to MFC. On the other hand, going to WinRT, it feels like as an experiment that could be dropped on the next release as we have seen many times. WxWidgets on the other hand has been for some time, but never tried. I think it will be arround for some years from now.
Disregard my advice to learn other languages then, looks like you already know a pile of them :-). I recommend getting away from MS once in a while because you can get stuck in a bear trap if you use nothing else[1]. I see loads of poor buggers still trapped using VC++6.0 (on these forums and in real life) and I almost cry for them. Then I remember they made the choice to swallow the hook MS fed them gave them and now they can't choke it up. Instead of using standard C++ they splatted on every MS extension they could find. When MS finally came up with a very good standard compiler in 2003 (2002 was nearly there) they were stuck. Huge job to move the code. Anyway, I don't recommend writing non-portable code, even if you just use windows, as it's your ticket out of trouble when you have to change tools. And portable code has another advantage: If you need a programmer quickly you have a greater pool to draw on, you're not just stuck with the subset of VC++ programmers and you're a member that bigger pool as well. Where was I? Oh yes, WxWidgets next. So WxWidgets is meant to be portable so it's not a bad thing. However if you only ever do Windows in C++ with the caveats above it won't do a lot for you. You might as well keep using MFC. You might still like to look at the differences in implementation between WxWidgets and MFC, the things they do differently, the rubbish ideas in both, the great ideas in both. For the next big thing I'd wait a couple of years and see what catches on. After a few years the good ideas are still there and the bad ones are gone apart from the people who invested heavily in them. Try and avoid the marketing spend (Sun and Microsoft spent loads on selling Java and .Net to non-techy managers, not developers) and concentrate on what helps you right now. I use a lot of open source libraries (expat, libCURL and OpenSSL to name three) and they can quite often do what the big guns are trying to flog in a more effective way. So the moral of this lot is avoid company tie ins - they're usually bad for you. Keep learning stuff outside the box you're in (whether employer mandated or self imposed) and you can't go wrong. Well you can but it'll help in the long run. Sorry about the length of the post, I'm not sure if I've answered your points that well though! Cheers, Ash [1] And I say this with 6 different versions of MS's compiler on my computer
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Disregard my advice to learn other languages then, looks like you already know a pile of them :-). I recommend getting away from MS once in a while because you can get stuck in a bear trap if you use nothing else[1]. I see loads of poor buggers still trapped using VC++6.0 (on these forums and in real life) and I almost cry for them. Then I remember they made the choice to swallow the hook MS fed them gave them and now they can't choke it up. Instead of using standard C++ they splatted on every MS extension they could find. When MS finally came up with a very good standard compiler in 2003 (2002 was nearly there) they were stuck. Huge job to move the code. Anyway, I don't recommend writing non-portable code, even if you just use windows, as it's your ticket out of trouble when you have to change tools. And portable code has another advantage: If you need a programmer quickly you have a greater pool to draw on, you're not just stuck with the subset of VC++ programmers and you're a member that bigger pool as well. Where was I? Oh yes, WxWidgets next. So WxWidgets is meant to be portable so it's not a bad thing. However if you only ever do Windows in C++ with the caveats above it won't do a lot for you. You might as well keep using MFC. You might still like to look at the differences in implementation between WxWidgets and MFC, the things they do differently, the rubbish ideas in both, the great ideas in both. For the next big thing I'd wait a couple of years and see what catches on. After a few years the good ideas are still there and the bad ones are gone apart from the people who invested heavily in them. Try and avoid the marketing spend (Sun and Microsoft spent loads on selling Java and .Net to non-techy managers, not developers) and concentrate on what helps you right now. I use a lot of open source libraries (expat, libCURL and OpenSSL to name three) and they can quite often do what the big guns are trying to flog in a more effective way. So the moral of this lot is avoid company tie ins - they're usually bad for you. Keep learning stuff outside the box you're in (whether employer mandated or self imposed) and you can't go wrong. Well you can but it'll help in the long run. Sorry about the length of the post, I'm not sure if I've answered your points that well though! Cheers, Ash [1] And I say this with 6 different versions of MS's compiler on my computer
Thank for the time spent on answering my question. I think you are right on spending some time on external libraries.
