MFC's future
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Microsoft .NET is a very perspective technology, but I think it could kill MFC. Not in near future, but some time later. I didn't read anything about this, I'm just want to hear your opinion about MFC's future.
I have heard from people that Visual Studio 8 (whatever they name it) will have many enhancements. The only thing is that these people are sworn to non-disclosure agreements. So, it would appear that it is not entirely dead... if what they say is true. Also, my copy of Programming with Visual C++.NET, which is an MSPRESS core reference, is full of MFC code. This is promising for MFC, but not particularly meaningful, since this is a Sixth Edition book which was based of the Fifth Edition which was written at the height of MFC. Here are a few quotes: "MFC is a mature and well-understood technology that's accompanied by a host of third-party extensions. For at least a little while longer, MFC represents the most effective way to write full-featured stand-alone applications" - Programming with Microsoft Visual C++.NET, page xxx. "Is COM dead? Is MFC dead? Is ATL dead? These are questions many developers are asking. The simple answer is no, these older technologies are not dead. Yes, old skills still have value. A few years ago, people used to ask whether Java was going to kill C++. I always answered, 'Did C++ kill COBOL?' Of course not. In the same way, .NET isn't going to kill traditional Windows-only programming." - Using Visual C++.NET, page 15. "One of the design goals for Visual C++.NET was that it should be, to quote a member of the Microsoft development team, 'a great upgrade' for those doing non-.NET Windows programming. This, by the way, was not a design goal for other parts of Visual Studio.NET, including Visual Basic.NET." - Using Visual C++.NET, page 15. "ATL & MFC remain viable options for developers who want to write unmanaged code, and we’re still actively enhancing the libraries. Two big things we’re doing for the next version are making ATL interoperate with MFC better and also creating a new technology, ATL Server, which gets developers to the .NET platform while being able to leverage their existing ATL/MFC code. We will not update MFC/ATL to become managed (the .NET Framework already does a great job in that space). " - Lon Fisher on .NET @ CodeProject[^] These quotes are helpful, but not inspiring. I keep asking, "What is a little while?" and "Isn't COBOL really as good as dead?" I guess we will see. I am encouraged that C++ got consideration as heav
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* * eyes IBM 1130 FORTRAN manual * * Progress is good... (though i've my eye on one last MFC book ;) )
Shog9
Let your mercy spill / On all these burning hearts in hell If it be your will / To make us well...
Shog9 wrote: i've my eye on one last MFC book ) :-D BW "In a world full of people, only some want to fly,Isn't that crazy?" - Seal
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* * eyes IBM 1130 FORTRAN manual * * Progress is good... (though i've my eye on one last MFC book ;) )
Shog9
Let your mercy spill / On all these burning hearts in hell If it be your will / To make us well...
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Microsoft .NET is a very perspective technology, but I think it could kill MFC. Not in near future, but some time later. I didn't read anything about this, I'm just want to hear your opinion about MFC's future.
I think eventually, MFC will be relegated to legacy code only. What benefit is there to writing new code in MFC? If you want to write for Winows only, might as well take advantage of .NET. And if you want to write cross-platform, you can't use MFC anyway... you'll need wxWindows, VCF, Qt, etc., or program in Java. My own team has been more or less phasing out MFC. It is pretty rare for us to do any new development with MFC - mainly "throw-away" code. MFC will linger on for a while until people get the hang of the alternatives, though. "When a man sits with a pretty girl for an hour, it seems like a minute. But let him sit on a hot stove for a minute and it's longer than any hour. That's relativity." - Albert Einstein
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Microsoft .NET is a very perspective technology, but I think it could kill MFC. Not in near future, but some time later. I didn't read anything about this, I'm just want to hear your opinion about MFC's future.
Me think MFC will stay with us much longer then you guys here are expecting. Not to say, that there is no real conflict in using MFC and .NET: it's just not mutualy excluding technologies as you present it here. You can still use full power of MFC in your MC++ compiler. Yes, you will lose security permision features -- so what? Unless you are deploying not to fully trusted sites -- that's fine. Yes, no question .NET and CLR is nice for distributed and server site developments. On the client however: one could complain about alot of things not implemented there to consider it comparable to MFC and OLE/COM currently fully available from unmanaged soultions: Where are Windowless Controls? Where is aggregation? Where is Compound Document support? Where is standard Plugin Architecture comaparable to ActiveX, where OLE Container at least knows where to find available controls and what interfaces they should support? P/Invoke is everywhere! COM Assembly wrappers HUGE! (Check mshtml). You move HTML into managed -> CCW will be HUGE! (and you have to support it cause COM inside HTML will be used for very long time)... I also, see alot of possible problems realated to uncontrolable way GC and "Lazy COM" works in .NET. What I mean here: my company spend alot of efforts developing Client Solutions in Java, and what happened is: it's very difficult in QA to test and predict possible client configurations. So, what happens is: QA tests your "managed"(or java) program under some stressed conditions, but in reality client conditions are "slightly" different, therefore client circumstances may not be tested well enough... Time of course will tell...:);P "...Ability to type is not enough to become a Programmer. Unless you type in VB. But then again you have to type really fast..." Me
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LOL :laugh: - Anders Money talks, but all mine ever says is "Goodbye!"
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Microsoft .NET is a very perspective technology, but I think it could kill MFC. Not in near future, but some time later. I didn't read anything about this, I'm just want to hear your opinion about MFC's future.
MFC has far too large an established base for it to "vanish" in the near future. MFC has its quirks, as does every class library (.NET is chock full of idiosyncrocies and it's nearly brand new!), but it is a very mature, stable library. It also has a rich set of time-tested third party libraries that C#.NET lacks. An experienced developer can still put an GUI application together faster with MFC than with .NET and it will have more features users expect (.NET lacks so many GUI things it borders on the absurd.) (Speaking of missing features, I'm writing a little applet in C#.NET and am currently avoiding writing yet-another-comma-delimited-parser by writing this.)
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Microsoft .NET is a very perspective technology, but I think it could kill MFC. Not in near future, but some time later. I didn't read anything about this, I'm just want to hear your opinion about MFC's future.
Nothng that can replace MFC yet exists. Desktop developers have no use for .NET. Apparently a large number of programmers refuse to upgrade to VS.NET becasue of its bizarre interface; I wish I could go back. As long as Windows is around, MFC will be the dominant programming library.
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Tom Welch wrote: Didn't Nish get kicked out of the country for writing that? LOL I must say that's one of the funniest things anyone's said about the book in a while. Uhm I must discuss with Tom (Archer) whether we can use that as a marketing gimmick ;-) One of the co-authors getting kicked out of the country for writing about MFC :-) Nish
"I'm a bit bored at the moment so I'm thinking about writing a new programming language" - Colin Davies My book :- Summer Love and Some more Cricket [New Win] Review by Shog9 Click here for review[NW]
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Microsoft .NET is a very perspective technology, but I think it could kill MFC. Not in near future, but some time later. I didn't read anything about this, I'm just want to hear your opinion about MFC's future.
The whole point is that, if .NET actually does kill MFC, then it probably just establishes the fact that .NET must have actually got to a stage where programmers find it much more powerful and easy to use than MFC ever was. The old must make way for the young. It's been like that since Adam first saw Eve without the leaves... Nish
"I'm a bit bored at the moment so I'm thinking about writing a new programming language" - Colin Davies My book :- Summer Love and Some more Cricket [New Win] Review by Shog9 Click here for review[NW]
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Nothng that can replace MFC yet exists. Desktop developers have no use for .NET. Apparently a large number of programmers refuse to upgrade to VS.NET becasue of its bizarre interface; I wish I could go back. As long as Windows is around, MFC will be the dominant programming library.
Jim A. Johnson wrote: Desktop developers have no use for .NET. Uhm, I take it that you have never taken a proper look at the .NET BCL. If you had then you probably wouldn't be saying this Jim. Remember, there is nothing stopping you from continuing to use MFC while also taking advantage of the BCL. Nish
"I'm a bit bored at the moment so I'm thinking about writing a new programming language" - Colin Davies My book :- Summer Love and Some more Cricket [New Win] Review by Shog9 Click here for review[NW]
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Jim A. Johnson wrote: Desktop developers have no use for .NET. Uhm, I take it that you have never taken a proper look at the .NET BCL. If you had then you probably wouldn't be saying this Jim. Remember, there is nothing stopping you from continuing to use MFC while also taking advantage of the BCL. Nish
"I'm a bit bored at the moment so I'm thinking about writing a new programming language" - Colin Davies My book :- Summer Love and Some more Cricket [New Win] Review by Shog9 Click here for review[NW]
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Please, excuse my ignorance: But what exactly in BCL that is not already in STL? "...Ability to type is not enough to become a Programmer. Unless you type in VB. But then again you have to type really fast..." Me
igor1960 wrote: But what exactly in BCL that is not already in STL? I havent done any STL but I guess STL does not have Regular Expressions, Networking classes (the BCL has some very high level abstractions for handling HTTP, FTP etc), Imaging, ADO classes, Crypto classes, System diag classes, a speech library (text 2 speech and reverse) and many more that I dont remember as of now. Nish
"I'm a bit bored at the moment so I'm thinking about writing a new programming language" - Colin Davies My book :- Summer Love and Some more Cricket [New Win] Review by Shog9 Click here for review[NW]
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As someone familiar with MFC I just don't like the way .NET related code is so easily reversible. I do not know if it is the same way with managed C++, I hope not. I am using the first release of Visual Studio.NET have they released a forms editor that works for Visual C++ yet? Sorry this all goes back to my LONGGG time away from C++. Code4Food ---- "There is no try; only do or do not" -Yoda
Code4Food wrote: As someone familiar with MFC I just don't like the way .NET related code is so easily reversible. Yes me too, but we're going ahead full steam with a big commercial app that was formerly mfc / c++ to c# .net and I would not turn back to MFC / c++ to write a business application now for any money. Just too painfully slow. When I program in C# it's simply amazing how much you can get done in such a short period of time. As for reversible, we had that concern for our business apps about the first 10 seconds after we started using c# and one of the first things we did was tested building a ATL COM component that is fully accessible through interop from our c# code. It worked slick and flawlessly the first time with almost no quirkiness or difficulties at all. So all the stuff we don't want anyone to see is going into ATL components (license key, encryption etc) and the rest we'll just use a good quality obfuscator to keep the riff-raff out. We're not doing anything remotely patentable and we really don't care if anyone can see the majority of it or not as long as the critical stuff is wrapped inside COM components. ------------
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igor1960 wrote: But what exactly in BCL that is not already in STL? I havent done any STL but I guess STL does not have Regular Expressions, Networking classes (the BCL has some very high level abstractions for handling HTTP, FTP etc), Imaging, ADO classes, Crypto classes, System diag classes, a speech library (text 2 speech and reverse) and many more that I dont remember as of now. Nish
"I'm a bit bored at the moment so I'm thinking about writing a new programming language" - Colin Davies My book :- Summer Love and Some more Cricket [New Win] Review by Shog9 Click here for review[NW]
With an exception of Crypto/Imaging -- everything else looks like implemeted already either in STL/MFC -- majority looks like just wrappers to COM Objects (speech/ado/system diag)... But again for Crypto -- CryptoAPI... Imaging -- GDI++... "...Ability to type is not enough to become a Programmer. Unless you type in VB. But then again you have to type really fast..." Me
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Microsoft .NET is a very perspective technology, but I think it could kill MFC. Not in near future, but some time later. I didn't read anything about this, I'm just want to hear your opinion about MFC's future.
MFC will become the equivalent of those old classes we used to use for "windowing" in dos programs within the next 7-10 years. There's too much legacy code to see it die rapidly, but I suspect that it's going to fade away. I'm fully into .net now and couldn't see any reason to MFC for business application development. Maybe little utilities, etc, but then again those are usually ideal console apps so who can say. The real kicker is when .net is standard on every PC. At that point who wouldn't use it for little utilities etc when it compiles to a tiny 5k program. I'm amazed when a fairly sophisticated business app compiles to only 100kb in total for .net. It's great that way. Either way, I don't think .net can be put in the "fad" category at this point, I had my doubts a year ago, but it's very slick, works well, makes sense from every aspect for working class programming of business apps. MFC is just loaded with too much crap that it has accumulated over the years from win 3 days to now and it's become so byzantine and archaic by modern standards that it just has to collapse eventually under it's own weight. ------------
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Jim A. Johnson wrote: Desktop developers have no use for .NET. Uhm, I take it that you have never taken a proper look at the .NET BCL. If you had then you probably wouldn't be saying this Jim. Remember, there is nothing stopping you from continuing to use MFC while also taking advantage of the BCL. Nish
"I'm a bit bored at the moment so I'm thinking about writing a new programming language" - Colin Davies My book :- Summer Love and Some more Cricket [New Win] Review by Shog9 Click here for review[NW]
Don't bother Nish, it's like debating whether the Apple is better than the PC, it's a tool for the job sort of issue. That being said .net is so superior in so many ways that it's hard to imagine going back to MFC unless I feel like a trip down memory lane (and I don't ). ------------
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MFC will probably chug along in the background for a few years with very little in the way of updates and then slowly disappear off the radar screen. It wont happen for a while yet as that would be seen as trying to force people to use dot net which Microsoft seem to be weary of trying to ram down peoples throats and the backlash would push more people into using linux etc. So MS will probably make the right noises to pacify the MFC die hards for next couple of years as there are so many businesses relying on the MFC code, while continuing to push .NET largely through developers and sites like this until there are a majority of new projects being written in .Net rather than MFC, then MFC will start to slip until you get to the point where they don't include it with the compilers anymore. That's the way I'd do it anyway pseudonym67 Neural Dot Net Articles 1-11 Start Here[^]
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Tom Welch wrote: Didn't Nish get kicked out of the country for writing that? LOL I must say that's one of the funniest things anyone's said about the book in a while. Uhm I must discuss with Tom (Archer) whether we can use that as a marketing gimmick ;-) One of the co-authors getting kicked out of the country for writing about MFC :-) Nish
"I'm a bit bored at the moment so I'm thinking about writing a new programming language" - Colin Davies My book :- Summer Love and Some more Cricket [New Win] Review by Shog9 Click here for review[NW]
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I think eventually, MFC will be relegated to legacy code only. What benefit is there to writing new code in MFC? If you want to write for Winows only, might as well take advantage of .NET. And if you want to write cross-platform, you can't use MFC anyway... you'll need wxWindows, VCF, Qt, etc., or program in Java. My own team has been more or less phasing out MFC. It is pretty rare for us to do any new development with MFC - mainly "throw-away" code. MFC will linger on for a while until people get the hang of the alternatives, though. "When a man sits with a pretty girl for an hour, it seems like a minute. But let him sit on a hot stove for a minute and it's longer than any hour. That's relativity." - Albert Einstein