Thread: Visual C++ or JAVA....

CornedBee,

Is VB really dying? Cos everyone here speaks of VB, and most of them are shows-off, as if they were the only living groups to have learned VB!

Yes, I do think so. VB was always an MS-only language, and MS now has released a replacement. I don't see why those MS-followers (I tend to think of VB-programmers as such ) would not switch to their newest product, except maybe because of the price of Visual Studio.Net.

I hate that attitude of not willing to help out newbies, instead they just make you feel like you dont know nuthing!

I do too, and the post was not meant that way. I like to tell newbies straight out that there is much to learn, but I'm willing to give them as much help as I find time for (and sometimes more...).

It's older than the 1998 ANSI standards, so it can't even compile legal C++ code; anything that compiles on VC6 isn't even truly C++ anymore.

That's an overstatement. VC++6 cannot compile all code that is legal C++98, but that doesn't mean that all code that compiles is illegal. A simple Hello, World! using <iostream> etc. is absolutly legal C++98 and compiles in VC++6. However, partial template specialization doesn't compile, despite being legal.

so what should ppl use? VC++ .net?

VC++.Net 2003 is very good, as are GCC-based compiler of course. The original VC++.Net (7) still doesn't support partial template specialization.

No idea why anyone would want to fill their head with HTML...

There's some nice things you can do if you know HTML/XHTML and CSS2 well that can't be done in any designer I know of, not even DWMX.

I personally use VS.NET because I got a fantastic deal on it

What kind of deal? Is it anything that other people might get too?




As the other posters said, it mostly depends on what you plan to do.

XML is not something you need to learn (basic XML is dead easy and a quite small topic), but you might want to learn some XML-based markup languages, though most are complicated enough to be of use ONLY with a designer (e.g. SVG). But XML Schema might be good to know if you are aiming toward XML-based data storage.

HTML (or rather XHTML, for it is the newer standard) can be learned quite easily too. And there are designers that take most of the work from you. However you might want to learn it anyway, and especially some helper technologies like CSS or even XSLT. But only if you are interested in web design.

The same goes for server-side or client-side scripting languages like PHP, Perl, ASP, JavaScript etc. Learn them if you think you will need them for interactive and/or dynamic web pages. They are of little other use.

Java is a great language to know with very many applications (applications, applets (for interactive web pages), JSP/Servlets (for dynamic web pages), etc.), but you're going to learn it anyway, so you might want to spend your time on something different.

C# would be a windows-favored RAD language similar to VB, but with C++- and Java-like syntax. A nice language too, and very easy once you know one of the other too languages. If you expect to do business development for a company specialized in windows, you should learn C#.

Advanced C++ is the choice for commerical applications. Those are still mostly written in C++ and you nearly never learn everything there is to know about that language.

You might also want to spend the summer making yourself familiar with Linux and its tools (if you aren't already), that's a skill that is nice on a CV and necessary for jobs like Linux-server-based network admin.

I was under the impression that VC++ 6 didn't even have any of the new standard headers,

No, 6 has them. 5 didn't.
6 doesn't give warnings about their usage, however. 7 does.
And 6 has an incomplete std::string class which doesn't support container operations like push_back (which is bad, a back_insert_iterator is very useful with strings).

Originally posted by Cat
You can program in Windows without using WinAPI (or rather, with very limited API usage) if you use MFC (or OWL if you're a Borland guy). It's a very good idea to learn straight WinAPI, but it doesn't make much sense to use it for everything. For rapid development, MFC can make Visual C++ very quick, I'm talking fully-featured GUI programs in a few hours.

MFC and OWL, of course, are nothing more than wrappers of the API; they usually save you incredible amounts of time, but it's always good to know what's happening under the hood. So in that sense, you need to learn WinAPI, but it's not a good idea to use pure WinAPI itself (unless you want to reinvent the wheel and rite your own wrapper classes).

I disagree. I think it's a great idea to use what you call 'pure WinAPI'. Plus, I hate MFC.

Is VB really dying? Cos everyone here speaks of VB, and most of them are shows-off, as if they were the only living groups to have learned VB!

Uncertain, .NET changed alot of VB. However, I have not seen one instance on this board where one person who knew VB thought that they were better than everyone else. VB is a simple, non-diverse language.

Using only the WinAPI is a time consuming way of doing things. There are cases in which it's the most logical idea -- e.g. when you want to create very specialized windows, custom controls, etc. it's a very good way to do things.

However, when the goal is to develop an application quickly, I'll look first to MFC. For some projects I've had, I've been asked to go from specification to completed program in a single day, sometimes even less than that. When you're writing a dozen or so tools, none of which are your final product but each are needed to do some specific purpose, you don't always have the luxury of time. Better to have more time to write and debug the important parts.

In such cases, MFC and VC++'s auto-generated code is a godsend. Rather than waste time recreating code (or copy-pasting and modifying), you can use their library, use the tools to auto-generate much of the common stuff, and then you only need to code your own specialized parts.

I've written large programs without touching MFC, and large programs without touching WinAPI, and I know from experience that each has its niche, and I draw on the strong points of each.

I think that an analogy would be that MFC is a sports car, while WinAPI is like a pickup truck. For most applications, you could use either. But MFC offers you more speed, and the WinAPI offers more power. Depending on your application, MFC could be a good choice or a bad one; I recommend learning it, though, because it widens your programming options.

Typically, I use a mix of the two. I use MFC for common applications, like simple dialogs, and WinAPI for the more complicated tasks, like custom controls. The fact that with MFC I can create a dialog to prompt for input, and can often get away without adding a single line to their auto-generated code is a big plus.

I wouldn't say that either approach (WinAPI or MFC) is always the correct one. Rather, the particular constraints of your project dictate which approach is wisest. Both are powerful tools, when used properly, and I'm glad to have both at my disposal.

I actually got my copy of VS.NET 2003 Professional for free from my University.

Grr...

All I can get is a standard edition of 6 for €6.



Oh, I consider VB.Net a different language than VB.

Originally posted by CornedBee
Grr...

All I can get is a standard edition of 6 for €6.



Oh, I consider VB.Net a different language than VB.

I also consider it different... they screwed over a perfectly already-screwed language.