🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <MMORSE.169.743104544@nsf.gov> MMORSE@nsf.gov (Michael Morse) writes:
>>With Borland you have to learn the Windows coding up front. With VC++
>>you do not, it can be quite simply a fill in the blanks learning experence.
>>With VC++ you take on the learning of Windows one step or area at a time, not
>
>How easy it is to learn something, and what you need to know when, are 
>obviously very subjective, based on what you need to do immediately
>with the language, and what knowledge you've brought into it.  Nonetheless, 
>you are the first person I've heard from (out of scores) that thinks that 
>VC++ is easy to learn.  
>
>My experience is that with VC++ you must first learn Windows programming, 
>then learn the MS Foundation Classes, and then you can start learning the 
>Class Wizard and Apps Studio.  Powerful features, no doubt, but not easy to 
>learn by my standards.  
>
>For example, take a first-time VC++ user, with no Windows programming 
>experience.  Have them take a day or two to go through the "Scribble" 
>tutorial that comes with VC++.  I would say that 99% of the time, the user 
>will be more confused afterwards than when he/she started.
>
>There may be a way of teaching VC++ that is "fill in the blanks", but I can 
>tell you that it doesn't come with the package, pro or standard.
>
>--Mike

Microsoft's documentation, including "Scribble" is vastly better
than Borland's!  Nevertheless, you will need 3rd party references for
either class library.

In my experience, MFC 2.0 (Visual C++) has had more of a learning
curve than OWL (Borland C++), but it is much more rewarding.

OWL isn't much more than a message funnel that allows you to map
Windows messages to response functions.  *It completely ignores
GDI!*  You have to manually allocate and release GDI resources --
isn't this the whole point of constructors and destructors?  But
Borland didn't implement it.

MFC is what the Windows API would have been if Windows had been
written in C++.  It is a very thin, very complete encapsulation of
all of Windows.  Furthermore, most MFC apps can compile directly under
Windows NT as 32-bit applications with absolutely no modifications.
I've done it!

With OWL, even with the forthcoming Borland C++ for NT, you'd have to
make changes to compensate for 32-bit (not 16-bit) values and change the
order of parameters in some API calls.

True, Borland C++ is available on more platforms (notably, OS/2).
But, since it doesn't encapsulate the platform-specific things (such
as GDI/GPI) it isn't any more useful than MS C++ in cross-platform
situations.

-- 
 Nathan Silva (nathans@pacifier.rain.com)
 Vancouver, Washington, USA
 Data is not information is not knowledge is not wisdom.