Re: Unicode setting question
"Giovanni Dicanio" <giovanni.dicanio@invalid.com> wrote in message
news:Omqgc68wIHA.5124@TK2MSFTNGP04.phx.gbl...
I think some people (at the beginner level) find C++ hard because they
program in C++ like they were in C. For example, they don't use tools like
array classes (CArray, or std::vector) or string classes (CString, or
std::[w]string). They instead use raw C arrays (also char* for strings),
which cannot be resized, which cause buffer overruns, etc.
Or they use pointers in complex scenarios, without wrapping these pointers
in smart pointers classes like shared_ptr or others.
Said differently: C++ offers tools to make life easier, but several C++
programmers do not use these tools, and have hard-time trying to write
programs in a "C way".
I'm not sure. If you know C, you can effectively program in Win32. If you
know the basics of C++ (encapsulation, inheritance, polymorphism), you can
effectively use MFC. Even if you don't know CString or CArray (which you
will soon learn due to the MFC API's using these a lot), and stick with char
*, etc. your code should still work. And CString/CArray, any of the C++
classes in MFC are pretty easy to learn.
I just think many new graduates don't know the basics of C, and that is the
problem. Once they know C, it's easy to get to the type of C++ used with
MFC.
But MFC is hard compared to WinForms, which gives a much more pure
Windows abstraction. So I think even though MFC requires more C++ than
C#, and more Win32 than WinForms, C++ taken to the extreme is not in the
equation.
I think that MFC is hard not because that (= "MFC being hard") is a God's
law, but because the authors of MFC do little effort to make things
better.
For example, why not providing methods like SetBackgroundColor or
SetForegroundColor that work for every control?
Why not make possible to describe ribbons using an XML description? (I
think that the new BCGSoft extensions in Feature Pack 2008 do not support
XML description for ribbon...)
Why not add some class for XML management?
Why when I derive a class from CFileDialog and overrhide OnCltColor, I
can't change the background of file dialog (as would be expected) ?
I believe that if more effort would be put in MFC improvement, MFC will be
a stronger competitor with WinForms.
But if MFC remains almost the same as some years ago, WinForms will win.
The ribbon improvement is a good step forward, but more steps must be
done, IMHO.
Yes, for better or worse, the design goal of MFC to be a thin wrapper around
the Win32 API drags it down these days when no one really cares about the
Win32 API anymore.
-- David