🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <pathak-100892175041@virtual.mitre.org> pathak@mitre.org (Heeren Pathak) writes:
>In article <1992Aug10.171802.18367@nntpd.lkg.dec.com>,
>feldman@toklas.enet.dec.com (Gary Feldman) wrote:
>> 
>> I'm just starting to look at compilers and windows programming (for myself).
>> One thing that struck me was that Borland appears to have added a non-standard 
>> C++ extension, to bind messages to member functions (the "= [WM_FIRST + mesage]"
>> construct).  It seems like a nifty idea, but if you use it, doesn't it lock
>> you into buying compilers from Borland?  
>> 
>
>From what I understand, Borland's extensions are being debated by the ANSI
>committee and may actually become part of the standard.

To the best of my knowledge and after checking with several representatives
on the ANSI XJ316 (the C++) committee, the Borland extension has not been
proposed, let alone debated by the XJ316 folks.


>
>> As I said, I'm just getting started, and it's difficult making my way through
>> all the documentation.  So it's possible I've got this wrong.
>> 
>
>Microsoft uses a different non-standard mechanism.  Granted, their
>mechanism is handled by a preprocessor but it is still non-standard.  In
>reality, I don't see a big difference either way.

Microsoft does not use a language extension, everything that is used
for the message routing is standard ANSI C++.  MFC will compile with
BCC 3.1.

>
>Personally, I have had very good experiences as a Borland customer and no
>so good experiences as a Microsoft customer.  However from what I have read
>recently, the Microsoft complier has improved considerably (I haven't used
>a Microsoft complier for several years now).  
>
>Comparing class libraries, I prefer the Borland class library.  While it
>doesn't cover the entire Windows API, the sections it does cover contain a
>much higher level of abstraction the Microsoft Foundation Classes.  When I
>looked at the MFC a month or two ago, I wasn't impressed.  Most of the MFC
>seems to be a wrapper around Windows function calls.  While this is great
>for those who already know Windows and are porting their code, I am
>doubtful that the MFC will provide the flexiblity that a well designed
>Object-Oriented Application Framework provides.  
>

OWL and MFC provide nearly identical functionality in almost every
area.  MFC provides substantial abstraction in the areas of OLE, custom
controls, object persistance (that is much more automatic than OWL's).
OWL has 54 classes and MFC has 87, and the classes that the two have
in common are essentially identical, except that MFC is substantially
more complete.  Often at first look, people consider MFC less "abstract"
than OWL only because it uses the same names as Windows APIs and has
all the functionality of Windows.  


-- 
Steven Sinofsky
stevesi@microsoft.com
Disclaimer: I don't speak for Microsoft, BillG does that.