goodbye MFC, goodbye windows
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would IBM and sun be among them? just kidding. I get your point, it's costly, but I'd rather go this route and have lasting extensible code for my own development needs. I know this may not work for everybody and I'm not saying it should. The dropping of MFC was the final straw for me though.
You will NEVER have "lasting" code! It is a fact of like for a developer. Technologies will come that clients demand and you will always move on to something else. You only have to find what is new, jump into it and it should last you far longer than any legacy technologies. Yes, C++ or Java will be around, but the API's keep changing and demands on the software keep changing. This is not just a MS thing, it is all platforms. Shoot, even Apple through out their OS for a Unix form. About the only way you can write code that will last for a LONG time is to make it not access storage, never have a UI, do not access networks. Yep, it can just about only do a loop :) Look how far Java has changed with their new version? Linux now has two GUI's, what is going to happen when they want to compete with Longhorn and its advanced graphics? More changes... On a little side note, you can dig into things such as .NET or Java and work both sides of the fense, since they are now mostly cross platform. Rocky <>< www.HintsAndTips.com - RSS Enabled www.JokesTricksAndStuff.com www.MyQuickPoll.com Me Blogs: wdevs - MSN Spaces (new)
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I have been hearing pretty much this exact message for 7 years. I believe MFC is a 5 headed monster that will probably never die so while you should definitely be learning the newer technologies I'd take the "death is imminent" message with a grain of salt. I think Microsoft would probably like MFC to die, but that by no means it actually will. David
Agreed. For every person at MS that says that it's dead, I can give you one that says that not only is it alive, but that it will have another reason. For example, Walter Sullivan is a manager on the VC++ team (also one of the main people who put the WTL on the MSDN CDs some time ago) and he's stated on several occassions that MFC isn't going anyplace. Cheers, Tom Archer "Use what talents you possess. The woods would be very silent if no birds sang there except those that sang best." - William Blake * Inside C# -Second Edition * Visual C++.NET Bible * Extending MFC Applications with the .NET Framework
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Windows Forms will be in the place of MFC come 2006 -- supported, but not the primary (or at least, "newest") GUI framework, thanks to Avalon.
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Yeah, but in 2006 most development is going to go through a major change. I kind of dread it as I have too much work to do now ;) Rocky <>< www.HintsAndTips.com - RSS Enabled www.JokesTricksAndStuff.com www.MyQuickPoll.com Me Blogs: wdevs - MSN Spaces (new)
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my updated books for sale list, and here is my slightly tarnished copy of VS2005 that just got tossed out. I know alot of you guys can't do this, but this was really the last straw for me. I was one of those saps that took the time to learn WFC java extensions only to have all my apps become obsolete over night. And now this. I took the past couple years to learn C/C++ linux programming because in the back of my mind, I just knew this was going to happen, that once again, all of my user applications would become unextensible and worthless. I knew it. I just did. So I took my free time and learned C/C++ on lin and now I'm ready to move forward with standard code and libraries STL, ect... that I know are here to stay. I know alot of you think this is dumb, but this is the path I'm going on. I have one pretty big last direct show application I made with MFC to finish, then I'm going to kiss it goodbye. I have built myself a mega lin development tower, and I'm getting ready to try to port WinAPI for GDI on xlib. Even if I'm not able to do that completely, I'm going to keep going in this direction with existing libs like gtkmm for building apps now. Alot of you can't because win now dominates the desktop, but I can't stand these types of changes anymore. They don't just extend on a technology anymore, they wipe it out and start all over again and it's too much for me. I thought MFC was here to stay from earlier posts a couple years ago by the same guy from MS, but now they've changed their minds. Too much for me. I'm outta here.
Steve is just giving his opinion. Like when Jeffrey Richter states that all .NET dev is going to be C# because that's *the* .NET language. Read my response to David C where I basically refer to Walter Sullivan's remarks (Walter is a PM on the VC++ team) about the fact that MFC is not going away any time soon. Cheers, Tom Archer "Use what talents you possess. The woods would be very silent if no birds sang there except those that sang best." - William Blake * Inside C# -Second Edition * Visual C++.NET Bible * Extending MFC Applications with the .NET Framework
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You will NEVER have "lasting" code! It is a fact of like for a developer. Technologies will come that clients demand and you will always move on to something else. You only have to find what is new, jump into it and it should last you far longer than any legacy technologies. Yes, C++ or Java will be around, but the API's keep changing and demands on the software keep changing. This is not just a MS thing, it is all platforms. Shoot, even Apple through out their OS for a Unix form. About the only way you can write code that will last for a LONG time is to make it not access storage, never have a UI, do not access networks. Yep, it can just about only do a loop :) Look how far Java has changed with their new version? Linux now has two GUI's, what is going to happen when they want to compete with Longhorn and its advanced graphics? More changes... On a little side note, you can dig into things such as .NET or Java and work both sides of the fense, since they are now mostly cross platform. Rocky <>< www.HintsAndTips.com - RSS Enabled www.JokesTricksAndStuff.com www.MyQuickPoll.com Me Blogs: wdevs - MSN Spaces (new)
Rocky Moore wrote: You will NEVER have "lasting" code There *IS* long lasting code. I work with a machine translation library that was initially developed in early 90's. Works like a charm. Do you know how much Fortran 77 code is around and still working? Rewriting perfectly functional software just to be "hip" makes no business sense.
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Rocky Moore wrote: You will NEVER have "lasting" code There *IS* long lasting code. I work with a machine translation library that was initially developed in early 90's. Works like a charm. Do you know how much Fortran 77 code is around and still working? Rewriting perfectly functional software just to be "hip" makes no business sense.
My programming blahblahblah blog. If you ever find anything useful here, please let me know to remove it.
It's not being HIP.. It is not rewriting the software, it is NEW development. It is maintaining old code that take more work to keep up than to rewrite. If you continue to write in old legacy technologies, you will be in a box and your market will shrink. It depends on what you are doing and what you expect. There are a lot of DOS applications around, but I know of no one that writes them today! Rocky <>< www.HintsAndTips.com - RSS Enabled www.JokesTricksAndStuff.com www.MyQuickPoll.com Me Blogs: wdevs - MSN Spaces (new)
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It's not being HIP.. It is not rewriting the software, it is NEW development. It is maintaining old code that take more work to keep up than to rewrite. If you continue to write in old legacy technologies, you will be in a box and your market will shrink. It depends on what you are doing and what you expect. There are a lot of DOS applications around, but I know of no one that writes them today! Rocky <>< www.HintsAndTips.com - RSS Enabled www.JokesTricksAndStuff.com www.MyQuickPoll.com Me Blogs: wdevs - MSN Spaces (new)
can you explain this to me? What the heck does it matter if your code library is in a .NET PE or in a dll or in a .so or in COM or corba? I think the person who's post you answered is right. I've had to recompile C code for unix on linux that was written in the 80's on GCC, and all I had to change were the old style C declarations. I can still and do compile java code from JDK 1.1.8 on 1.5 with netbeans. All this stuff is bologna, it's another way to sell more books, and more IDE's and more stuff you don't really need. I'm through chasing the doggy's tail. Tell me one thing you can write a library for in .NET with IL wrapped metadata COM that you can't with regular WinAPI or MFC or Linux? Just one thing please? You can package any code as any type of reusable library, period. Sure .NET makes the code available to be linked by many languages, but that doesn't change the fact that you could do that with COM or Corba. These are the same old libraries we saw on Java and MFC repackaged as .NET IL code and labeled as "brand new" No thanks. I'm changing to linux, plus I can extend my java code into looking glass, which is actually something different on the Desktop for a change. Yes I run looking glass from the cvs on sun.com and yes I like it. I learned java before C++ many moons ago, and I never gave it up for MS's managed code, because I knew better. I was hoping they would extend the pillars of longhorn into normal C++ and MFC but they didn't and now they're cancelling the library all together. I think it's time for me to move on to something that doesn't change faster than I change my socks. I got burned on WFC a few years ago too, the msdn docs disappeared overnight on that one, it was like a great magician's disappearing act.
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It's not being HIP.. It is not rewriting the software, it is NEW development. It is maintaining old code that take more work to keep up than to rewrite. If you continue to write in old legacy technologies, you will be in a box and your market will shrink. It depends on what you are doing and what you expect. There are a lot of DOS applications around, but I know of no one that writes them today! Rocky <>< www.HintsAndTips.com - RSS Enabled www.JokesTricksAndStuff.com www.MyQuickPoll.com Me Blogs: wdevs - MSN Spaces (new)
You are focused on technologies too much, IMHO. The library I mentioned was not designed for Win 3.1 - it was designed to be portable. It was used in 16-bit Windows (some parts even on DOS, I suspect), then ported to Win32, OS/2, Mac, Linux, and currently it works on Windows 2000/XP machines and is mostly being used from a .NET WinForms application. And in couple of years WinForms will be a "legacy technology", but the old C++ mt library will still work with whatever is the technology of the day - unless discontinued for some non-technical reason, of course. I focus on the basics: data structures, algorithms, programming languages, development methodologies, project management. Technologies come and go, but the core knowledge remains. All this .NET vs MFC grunting makes no sense to me. I learn whatever technology I need for a particular task, and then forget it and learn a new one for the next task. Big deal.
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You are focused on technologies too much, IMHO. The library I mentioned was not designed for Win 3.1 - it was designed to be portable. It was used in 16-bit Windows (some parts even on DOS, I suspect), then ported to Win32, OS/2, Mac, Linux, and currently it works on Windows 2000/XP machines and is mostly being used from a .NET WinForms application. And in couple of years WinForms will be a "legacy technology", but the old C++ mt library will still work with whatever is the technology of the day - unless discontinued for some non-technical reason, of course. I focus on the basics: data structures, algorithms, programming languages, development methodologies, project management. Technologies come and go, but the core knowledge remains. All this .NET vs MFC grunting makes no sense to me. I learn whatever technology I need for a particular task, and then forget it and learn a new one for the next task. Big deal.
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I think we are still talking on the same plane, just different words. The program had to be "changed" ("Ported") to new technologies as it always will. You cannot use your old legacy system for ever nor do you build new development on it, the OS's change, IO changes and there will always be change. Code does not tie to one technology and go on living forever. Even in Fortran, there are new compilers and changes come and go and there will be a need to learn these new technologies. Even if you have application code generators that translate your code to new technologies, that generator has to change. There is no good forever code when technologies keep changing. From what I could read, the point of the thread was that the person did not like all the change. That they wanted to have a technology that would live forever. That will not happen no matter which platform is used. Rocky <>< www.HintsAndTips.com - RSS Enabled www.JokesTricksAndStuff.com www.MyQuickPoll.com Me Blogs: wdevs - MSN Spaces (new)
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can you explain this to me? What the heck does it matter if your code library is in a .NET PE or in a dll or in a .so or in COM or corba? I think the person who's post you answered is right. I've had to recompile C code for unix on linux that was written in the 80's on GCC, and all I had to change were the old style C declarations. I can still and do compile java code from JDK 1.1.8 on 1.5 with netbeans. All this stuff is bologna, it's another way to sell more books, and more IDE's and more stuff you don't really need. I'm through chasing the doggy's tail. Tell me one thing you can write a library for in .NET with IL wrapped metadata COM that you can't with regular WinAPI or MFC or Linux? Just one thing please? You can package any code as any type of reusable library, period. Sure .NET makes the code available to be linked by many languages, but that doesn't change the fact that you could do that with COM or Corba. These are the same old libraries we saw on Java and MFC repackaged as .NET IL code and labeled as "brand new" No thanks. I'm changing to linux, plus I can extend my java code into looking glass, which is actually something different on the Desktop for a change. Yes I run looking glass from the cvs on sun.com and yes I like it. I learned java before C++ many moons ago, and I never gave it up for MS's managed code, because I knew better. I was hoping they would extend the pillars of longhorn into normal C++ and MFC but they didn't and now they're cancelling the library all together. I think it's time for me to move on to something that doesn't change faster than I change my socks. I got burned on WFC a few years ago too, the msdn docs disappeared overnight on that one, it was like a great magician's disappearing act.
I can run programs and compile C++ code written in the 80's for DOS but that does not mean it has any value in today's world. You want to go to Linux, that is fine, I will be there writing .NET code in the near future myself, but that does not mean technology will stand still. Java is taken a lot of the development on Linux from the C++ roots. In the future there will probably be a battle of .NET and Java. Does not matter though as long as both remain a viable platform. C++ is on the fading end of things as companies care less about squeezing out the last cycle of performance for the sake of rapid development and maintenance. Things like OS's will probably remain in the C++ world but many of the applications are moving. Platform is not important. Technology that is currently available is not important. They will always change and developers will always have to change to stay viable. If all you know about .NET is that it was created to push books and make money, you did not learn much about .NET! Rocky <>< www.HintsAndTips.com - RSS Enabled www.JokesTricksAndStuff.com www.MyQuickPoll.com Me Blogs: wdevs - MSN Spaces (new)
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I think we are still talking on the same plane, just different words. The program had to be "changed" ("Ported") to new technologies as it always will. You cannot use your old legacy system for ever nor do you build new development on it, the OS's change, IO changes and there will always be change. Code does not tie to one technology and go on living forever. Even in Fortran, there are new compilers and changes come and go and there will be a need to learn these new technologies. Even if you have application code generators that translate your code to new technologies, that generator has to change. There is no good forever code when technologies keep changing. From what I could read, the point of the thread was that the person did not like all the change. That they wanted to have a technology that would live forever. That will not happen no matter which platform is used. Rocky <>< www.HintsAndTips.com - RSS Enabled www.JokesTricksAndStuff.com www.MyQuickPoll.com Me Blogs: wdevs - MSN Spaces (new)
I think that Beer26 really hates the way technologies get "discontinued" rather than enabled to cooperate with the new ones, and if this is the case I agree with him. Many people have invested their time into learning and working with technologies like Visual J++ or VB6, or (like me) Managed Extensions for C++, and the way Microsoft just throws these technologies to trash instead of providing an upgrade path is irritating. However, Linux is even worse in this regard, and I hope he does not find it out the hard way :)
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Hear hear! I comletely second what you just said. I wouldn't go back to c++ / mfc from c# / winforms unless tortured very professionally.
John Cardinal wrote: I wouldn't go back to c++ / mfc from c# / winforms I used C++/MFC for several years, and since I wrote my first line of C#, I haven't gone back. Development in C#/.NET is really so much faster, that really now using MFC has no advantage (maybe performance? it's argueable but still, who cares if a bubble sort takes 0.1 or 0.5 seconds?) MFC is definitely not dead, there are many apps still using it and it will be around for *at least* 5 to 7 years more (adding that to the 12 years old it is already since it came out with MS C++ 7.0 in 1992). But for new projects, why start with old technollogies? use the new ones, learn them, you may actually like them! :) -- LuisR
Luis Alonso Ramos Intelectix - Chihuahua, Mexico Not much here: My CP Blog!
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I think that Beer26 really hates the way technologies get "discontinued" rather than enabled to cooperate with the new ones, and if this is the case I agree with him. Many people have invested their time into learning and working with technologies like Visual J++ or VB6, or (like me) Managed Extensions for C++, and the way Microsoft just throws these technologies to trash instead of providing an upgrade path is irritating. However, Linux is even worse in this regard, and I hope he does not find it out the hard way :)
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Yeah, been there.. Over the last 20 years I have been a programmer, there have been a lot of technologies and platforms. Many seem to "try" new technologies hoping to make them float ("OLE anyone") but at the end of the day it is all a turkey shoot as to which will survive. I remember when Borland dumped it's C++ development (practically, their compilers become garbage) and decided Delphi was everything a person needed, pushing it down the throats of all us developers. So much for all the learning of OWL. Microsoft was busy pushing VB on everyone but at least had enough sense to keep the C++ development tools. Now .NET is making waves for many reasons, but on is that you are not language dependant, you can use multple programming languages to build a single app, in the same assembly. At least that is one road block out of the way. You can still use C++, C#, VB.NET, Fortan.NET, and a host of other languages to build a single application. Rocky <>< www.HintsAndTips.com - RSS Enabled www.JokesTricksAndStuff.com www.MyQuickPoll.com Me Blogs: wdevs - MSN Spaces (new)
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marc i know ur a very experienced developer and all but really ... keep it real please ... im by no means a linux guru but i can set up a dual-boot machine with dev environments for both windows and debian/linux in maybe 5hrs (with a decent internet connection) sure developing for linux isnt as easy as windows with its single api (well it DID have a single api hmmmmmmmm) but it is here to stay and its future development isnt driven by the need to make ever more profits (like ms is) linux is becoming a very serious threat to ms and they know it so i would suggest that all smart developers with more than a few years of working life ahead of them get at least familiar with linux as well as windows
Well said. But at the same time, if you are writing with MFC, it suggests you are going GUI apps, and guess where the majority of GUI apps run. Where I work, the servers run on Linux & Solaris, and the GUI's run on Windows 2000. And its going to stay that way. The only deviation may be in a switch from some of Stingrays libs to someone elses, though we'll stick with the grid, which is the best out there. We have too much code in C++, and so will not be bothering to switch to managed with the hassle of having mixed managed and unmanged. Why make life difficult. And managed GUI's are slooooooow. They are fine for some VB style flat client/db interface, but when you have a large number of clients listening to distributed real time data coming in, you need something quicker.
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would IBM and sun be among them? just kidding. I get your point, it's costly, but I'd rather go this route and have lasting extensible code for my own development needs. I know this may not work for everybody and I'm not saying it should. The dropping of MFC was the final straw for me though.
How the hell do you think you will ever have lasting code? Come on. Get realistic. You think the STL C++ stuff you develop for Linux an the GUI's you will develop too will still work on the latest greatest SuSE, Debian, Mandrake, RedHat etc etc etc in 5 or 6 years.... :laugh::laugh::laugh::laugh::laugh: Regards, Brian Dela :-) Now Bloging![^]
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I understand your feelings - that's how I felt when I saw them changing MC++ syntax and making all my effort in learning and using it worthless. Having said that, it is only business. The things I am really interested in (modern C++, Boost, Loki,...) are not going away any time soon :) As for technologies, I've seen too many advertised as "the silver bulit" and then abandoned. 5-10 years ago it was COM, now it is .NET, tomorrow who knows what. Big deal.
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Aren’t most of MS major applications (Outlook, Office, Media Player, IE, etc) using MFC in some sort of way. I just can’t believe that MS would up and leave MFC… they would have too much code to convert over to new libraries.. .sure a power house like MS could do that – they have the $ and man/women power, but at what cost to them and the end user? Unfortunately as technology continues to evolve certain technologies will become obsolete, as developers I feel it is part of our job to be able to handle this. But I do not think MFC is going away any time soon, and to jump ship just yet might be a little premature. But that’s just my 2 cents. ------ I am the sole owner of all comments/statements made by myself, and they do not represent those of my company in any way. Furthermore, it’s a shame it has come to the point where we have to make statements like this. Cheers! ====================== Matthew R. Miller www.computersmarts.net[^]
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Aren’t most of MS major applications (Outlook, Office, Media Player, IE, etc) using MFC in some sort of way. I just can’t believe that MS would up and leave MFC… they would have too much code to convert over to new libraries.. .sure a power house like MS could do that – they have the $ and man/women power, but at what cost to them and the end user? Unfortunately as technology continues to evolve certain technologies will become obsolete, as developers I feel it is part of our job to be able to handle this. But I do not think MFC is going away any time soon, and to jump ship just yet might be a little premature. But that’s just my 2 cents. ------ I am the sole owner of all comments/statements made by myself, and they do not represent those of my company in any way. Furthermore, it’s a shame it has come to the point where we have to make statements like this. Cheers! ====================== Matthew R. Miller www.computersmarts.net[^]
Sorry I replied to the wrong post, this was suppose to be a reply to the main topic. My bad. ------ I am the sole owner of all comments/statements made by myself, and they do not represent those of my company in any way. Furthermore, it’s a shame it has come to the point where we have to make statements like this. Cheers! ====================== Matthew R. Miller www.computersmarts.net[^]
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How the hell do you think you will ever have lasting code? Come on. Get realistic. You think the STL C++ stuff you develop for Linux an the GUI's you will develop too will still work on the latest greatest SuSE, Debian, Mandrake, RedHat etc etc etc in 5 or 6 years.... :laugh::laugh::laugh::laugh::laugh: Regards, Brian Dela :-) Now Bloging![^]
Good luck trying to make it work on the latest SuSE, Debian, Mandrake, RedHat in 5 to 6 months!! :) ¡El diablo está en mis pantalones! ¡Mire, mire! Real Mentats use only 100% pure, unfooled around with Sapho Juice(tm)! SELECT * FROM User WHERE Clue > 0 0 rows returned
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Good luck trying to make it work on the latest SuSE, Debian, Mandrake, RedHat in 5 to 6 months!! :) ¡El diablo está en mis pantalones! ¡Mire, mire! Real Mentats use only 100% pure, unfooled around with Sapho Juice(tm)! SELECT * FROM User WHERE Clue > 0 0 rows returned
Hehe. Good point Jim. Regards, Brian Dela :-) Now Bloging![^]
