Wouldn't that be true of any language? Say, C or C++ being a wrapper around assembly language, C# and Java being a wrapper around their IL, which in turn is a wrapper around assembly?

rtischer8277 wrote:

ATL/MFC which from my perspective are the wave of the future

How can a pre C++98 library be the wave of the future? While I do like C++17, there is still lack of support for desktop and web development, save for a few hobby projects here and there. I thought that with cloud computing people would look to C++ for (micro)service development and such, because of the smaller memory footprint and faster processing times (which translates to lower costs). As for desktop, Microsoft (IMHO) has failed over and over and probably aren't interested in it anymore. So I think that until that changes, C++ will remain a language for specific server-heavy programs. I hope I'm wrong though, as I like the language more than C# or Java or even F#.

Thornik wrote:

WHAT they are busy that they cannot rewrite one of most important classes

Writing the next version of Metro/WinRT/UWP that nobody will use...

A piano key weights much more than a keyboard key. An important aspect of learning how to play involves doing finger exercises to strengthen one's fingers. Practicing those exercises in a keyboard won't be as efficient, and will have an impact in the agility of your son's fingers. That doesn't mean he can't be virtuoso with a keyboard, but it'll be harder. So I would advise against it. However, I also live in an apartment, so I understand the dilemma. A good compromise (and what I did) is to buy a small electric piano that fits nicely in your living room. Plus, you can wear headphones, should the neighbors complain. The sound won't be as neat as with a normal piano, though. Just make sure that the weight of the keys are close enough to those of a normal piano. Should you decide for the keyboard, make sure that it has at least seven octaves. The common keyboards have five octaves, making it impossible to play most of the common classical pieces. I did learn in one of those, and it was very frustrating. Seven octaves will cover almost every easy and medium level pieces, and a great deal of the advanced ones.

My business has Office 365. We have 7 people, and having OneDrive and SharePoint Online free us from having to store anything work-related on the laptops. I use my Surface when going with customers, so it's a bliss just click and show the presentation from SharePoint Online. We even share sites with customers, who not necessarily have O365, and they can download the project files, and upload their own. Skype for business gets the job done on the videoconference front, all our OneNotes are stored and shared through SharePoint, and we even use Planner for some projects that need more of a loose control (otherwise, we use Project). Half of our operation is in O365, the other half is in Visual Studio Online. So, having Office to update every year or so is really an added bonus for us, not the main reason we pay for O365.

A niche where C++ could fit, I think, is in the field of webapis. Picture a RESTful service that does the heavy processing efficiently as only a good piece of C++ code can do. Front ends (for web or mobile) can be done using C# or Java or Swift. When you install these webapis to the cloud, it would mean (at least theoretically) less memory and probably less CPU usage (if the C++ code is optimized), which would translate in less resources and a less expensive Azure bill. But I haven't seen a framework for C++ webapis apart from half-baked projects that stopped active development long ago. So unless you want to go creating ISAPI extensions or good old CGIs, I don't see it happening anytime soon. As for desktop development, Microsoft won't upgrade MFC nor will opensource it, and neither Qt nor C++/CX are actually standard C++ (and WinRT seems too much complicated to invest in a sandboxed environment) so I don't think C++ will come back to desktop anytime soon. Plus, Microsoft doesn't seem interested in desktop development aside from their UWP, essentially dooming (IMO) desktop apps.

Hello all. I'm kinda ranting with Microsoft and I wanted to ask CPian community about it, because I may be overreacting. For a new project I'm using unit testing, with vanilla unit tests. Many of these tests include throwing exceptions, such as ArgumentNullException, etc. Then I use VS 2017 Live Coverage to track how many code blocks are being tested and how many remain untested. I think this is a really useful tool, but I'm having this issue: when you run a test method with ExpectedExceptionAttribute, the Live Coverage marks the closing brace as not covered. Weird. This adds a small percentage of non-covered code blocks. So, as the project grows in size, and so do the unit tests, the % of non-covered blocks increase. In my project, I get a 8% of non-covered blocks just because of this scenario! I filed a bug report[^] with Microsoft, and they replied that this was by design and thus they won't fix it. So, what do you think, am I overreacting? I don't see the usefulness of a test coverage tool that will nevr yield a 100% coverage score unless I stop throwing exceptions altogether. Thoughts?

For the particular developer, it helps little, I think, because certs usually force you to memorize to the line concepts MS deems important. You won't be lerning much from those. As a business owner, I require all the people that I hire to have a MS-Cert or obtain it within 6 months (I pay them the exams). This is because MS requires me to have 5 certified engeneers (per competency) to keep my company as a Gold Partner. Being gold gives me access to Microsoft's CRM and oportunities they're working on, which means more sales leads without me having to hire more sales personnel. So, as an employeer, they are worth a lot to me. I should think many other Microsoft-centric companies are in the same position, so I think the certifications are worth it for developers that want to work for those companies: you help your company, and might improve your salary. Your mileage may vary though.

Indeed. They're a proof that money isn't everything. Especially for European leagues. Kudos! So, will ManU change van Gaal?

Yes, but you're a robot. u.u

Bad experience indeed, I hear you. I once made the mistake to land in Paris with unlabeled sodium bicarbonate and cajeta (some sort of toasted milk candy) that I had brought as a gift to a friend. It took me like two hours to convince them that the white powder was not cocaine (of course, they didn't take my word for it, they had it tested), that the cajeta was a candy (they did try it and tested it also, therefore ruining my gift), and that I was not a drug dealer. :rolleyes:

xiecsuk wrote:

you really can't beat a freshly brewed cup of tea

Blue tea, red tea, white tea, especially. :) :thumbsup:

I don't know about Starsucks in the US or Canada or Australia... My experience with it, in Mexico City and surrounding cities, has been very positive. When I go, I usually ask for either black coffee (or "Today's coffee or Daily coffee" or whatever they call it now) or black tea (English breakfast blend, usually). They charge me MXN$35 (pesos), which at today's exchange rate is a few cents under USD$2, and I get more than half litre of coffee or tea (100ml for 33 USD cents). While it might not be the cheapest, it has very good quality. The brews usually come from local states Veracruz and Chiapas, each producing very good quality of coffee, or Colombia, which is the greates brew I have tasted so far. Ocasionally they have coffee from Guatemala (which is Chiapas-like) or African countries, which IMO is good, yet not great. Being in a coffee exporter country, it is very easy to find places with very good quality brews. You can get SB-quality coffee for as low as 25 USD cents per 100 ml. However, SB provides additional services, such as free WiFi and nice, cozy desks where to work. Given that, those extra 8 USD cents are well worth it. Now, if you go for Italian-like coffee brews (cappuccino, latte, machiatto or mochaccino) then the prices escalate to MXN$55 and if you add extras (vanilla syrup, chocochips, mousse and such) your account can increase up to MXN$70. That is expensive, compared to what you can get elsewhere (cappuccinos for MXN$40 for example), and the beverage quality decreases (IMO) because the coffee taste gets diluted with all the additional sugar and milk. So, all in all, I'd say I have had a good experience with Starbucks. Good quality, good prices for black coffee (which is what I usually drink anyway, coffee with steamming water and nothing more) or black tea, and a nice place to work or just hang out.

It has a lot of bugs, and the recent upgrades broke things that were working. The start menu is nice, but it often freezes; the notification center is cool, but it regularly stops working (sometimes killing explorer.exe does the trick, sometimes it doesn't). I don't have Cortana because it's not available in my country, even though I installed the OS in English, so I really can't tell how good it is. The touch screen sometimes it won't show up when a textbox gets the focus, in tablet mode (which has rendered my Surface 3 Pro useless without the keyboard, since it won't let me enter my password). The apps are buggy too, especially the mail and calendar app. It's better than Weight, however, and has many improvements. Metro apps now are Windowed (in desktop mode) so I can have my Netflix app running alongside Visual Studio, without flickering. Continuum feature is great in my Surface. Snap views work cool with any app regardless of their origin (Win32, WPF, Metro). So I think it's a better OS than Weight, and slightly better than Weven. When the OS becomes stable (because IMHO this is still a beta product) it will become the best Windows OS so far. Until then...

Damn those Goa'uld... I wished SG1/SGA/SGU were back :(

Ah, that's a shame. When I open my VS on the Surface, I feel empowered. It really doesn't make much sense, I guess, but now I can code while I commute, while I'm at the coffee shop, or while I'm at my in-laws house ;P

Indeed, it was a surprise, she went to NY for Fashionweek, and I thought she'd bring me an "I <3 NY" shirt... xD

...and she got me a Surface 3 Pro! I've been playing with it all day, and what a marvelous peace of technology. I even installed Visual Studio 2013, which granted, it does not run as smoothly as in my laptop, but it compiles. And with VSOnline and Azure, I really don't need anything else, except maybe my old Age of Empires games. Sorry, gotta share my joy. Cheers!

So this year ends, did you make good on your 2014 promises? I did mange to fulfill some, but alas I couldn't make good on the promise regarding posting a few articles on CP (I got them almost ready, so hopefully for January they'll be posted!). Anyway, happy new year to everyone. How are you celebrating, how did you celebrate? In my town, we're celebrating with ash, since Don Goyo decided to explode[^] an hour ago, so the town's being covered with ash. Anyhow, I'm cooking a mushroom ragú fettuccine and my wife's making a spinach salad for the dinner. My relatives will bring pork drown in pasilla chili and wine, but since I don't eat pork and I can't stand the chili (of any type), well, I'm sticking with my ragú and the salad. P.S. A cousin of mine turned 16 years old in October, and I'm planning to get him drunk. So I'm also bringing a fruit-and-sugar-cane based beverage (called punch, but I guess its preparation differs from the American version), and I have smuggled a small bottle of transparent pulque, which I plan to slip into his beverage... ;P

OriginalGriff wrote:

Can we all cancel Xma

Better, cancel the cat...