Why do you still use Win32?

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Originally Posted by Ancient Dragon

As for c versus c++ -- people writing MS-Windows programs in pure c code are still living in the stone ages. You and your ancient c skills are obsolete in today's business world.

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Not quite Windows, Linux, UNIX are guess what written in C. If you use C you are not living in the stone ages. C is not bad I can use it if I want to I mostly use C++ becuase I like the OOP and OOD of the language.
C is sometimes faster and always as fast as C++. Don't get me wrong I'm not bashing C++. I really like the language but for low level stuff
you won't get anything better than C. (Just wait till some Asm geek gets on here and says to use assembly to code the GUI for Quake.) :rolleyes: Anyways in my Win32 API program's I write wrappers for whatever I need. For example I wrote a Window object that just wraps the CreateWindowEx() API. So I can easily create a Window whenever I want to.

None of us disagree from the fact that C++ is more powerful and faster than C#, but C# has its own advantages. Firstly .NET frameworks central idea is inter operatability. I have a team where some one is comfortable in VB.net while the other in C#. I can use the classes and code they generate in my programmes and even use COM code.
The most important concept behind OOP is to make very large scale programming more comprehendable. This is exactly what .NET framework tries to do.

We have heard people say that C# is not upto the mark. But i think this is not the case. It is a very well written language and very powerful too. Moreover some one said that .net makes programming so easy that everyone can do it, and most of them do it badly. Its right but remember that in todays competitive world only fittest survive. If i am not giving my clients the BEST, at the right time, with a highly efficient code, i will be sitting back at home. .NET framework allows speedy development of highly complex programmes (not just list views) with a high degree of reliability too.

use assembly to code the GUI for Quake

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Originally Posted by valis

use assembly to code the GUI for Quake

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I just knew this was going to happen. LOL :).

Based on the results of the poll, it seems most people use the Win32 API mostly because of a variety of reasons, but the most common was performance.

nvoight made a great point. I was a C++ guy too, and still whip out Dev-C++ from time to time, but lately it's been nothing but C#. At work we're developing a 500,000 line C# application, backed by over two hundred SQL Server 2000 tables and a huge number of stored procedures. And what's worse, is they only expect the whole thing to take a year, 18 months tops. The business rules are so complex that it's difficult to design with .NET, let alone think about doing it in C++. Using C++, even with MFC, I would expect the size of the application to at least double (and consequently our bug count, budget and time). And using C is completely out of the question. If .NET wasn't avaliable, I'd rather pick Java or VB6.

And also as nvoight mentioned, all the compilers for .NET are free. It's the IDE that costs money (and in a few months when Visual Studio .NET 2005 is released, the Visual C# Express version will be about USD$50). Most new computers and graphics cards/motherboards ship with the .NET Framework now, and it's also being pushed as a download through Microsoft Update.

Lastly, I don't think the performance of a pure C++ Win32 app is all that much greater than the .NET Framework. I would honestly not expect anything more than 20% increases in almost any application (3D games being a notable exception). When a .NET application is started, it's compiled to native code and from then on runs native. The only performance issues should be the lack of deterministic finalization (read: no destructors you can call in code) in loops, and the use of wrapper code around some controls and libraries.

Regardless of personal preferences, I would urge those that haven't yet done so to give C# or the .NET Framework a look. Maybe you won't like it, or you might find it interesting but prefer C++, but at least you can say you've tried. The most important thing to any programmer should be growth and developing your understanding of software development in general, and trying a new language might just be a lot of fun.

What kind of free C# compilers are there? And, aren't there any free IDEs for that language?

http://cboard.cprogramming.com/showthread.php?t=4615

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The business rules are so complex that it's difficult to design with .NET, let alone think about doing it in C++.

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The C++ database access code might be slightly longer than the equivalent .NET database code, but most of the business logic code should be fairly independent of the application library, right? Furthermore, the studies on whee bugs occur I've heard of say most of the bugs occur in the conditional points of the program. If the C++ access code is mostly boilplate code, the problem won't be finding the bugs within this code but finding the bugs in the other points of the code.

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Lastly, I don't think the performance of a pure C++ Win32 app is all that much greater than the .NET Framework. I would honestly not expect anything more than 20% increases in almost any application (3D games being a notable exception). When a .NET application is started, it's compiled to native code and from then on runs native.

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Any compilation to native code takes time. Because .NET cannot possibly compile all the code to the application at once, all compilation must be done piecemeal and therefore must inevitablty slow the program at some point. But I doubt, too, if this compilation can do the the kinds of optimations that a C++ compiler can do. Even if.NET's gains some advantage with hotspot optimization, a C++ compiler can do almost the same thing prior profile information.

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The only performance issues should be the lack of deterministic finalization (read: no destructors you can call in code) in loops, and the use of wrapper code around some controls and libraries.

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Garbage collection can slow down a program, too. I don't know if this is a too much of a problem with C#, though I have seen noticible problems with some Java apps.

I think alot of these reply's have been farely stupid, most are based of hobby programmer's like "I find c/win32 api more fun", maybe so for a hobby programmer .net may not be the best go, but if you look at writing commercial software with a deadline which needs to be updated alot, i would go with .net, it is a pure OO language making it alot more managable than C, you can make programs in much shorter time in C# than in c/c++, you dont have security problems like memory leaks and buffer overflows if your C# program is compiled in safe mode, the future of programming is going to be .net from the looks of things, and yes microsoft do program in C#/.net, and yes there are free C# compilers, the .net sdk is free, and as for an IDE there are things like #Dev and so on....now when programming for fun or what ever, i preffer c++/win32 api mainly because i'm not really limited to much and if i want to give the software out to people, i dont need to worry about them having the .net framework or not..but im sure that will change in the future as .net will be on vista by default, microsoft have been making more features & classes for .net, and the speed of .net is getting faster, the .net 2 beta is much faster than .net 1.1