Thread: Does VISUAL C++ ruin C?

I was talking to a friend of mine the other day who is a programmer, I myself am a cs student... and I was laughing at the assignments that I was given because I thought they were really easy so I did it all in ANSI C. My friend said he did the same thing to spice it up a bit. Unfortunately the grader had a hard time with my C code so i had to redo it. Back on topic we began talking about visual c++ and visual basic, though the source appears the same you can get by with a lot of it not having a firm grasp on c++. Do you think that visual c++ is ruining the c++ language? Please leave a reason why.

What do you mean? Visual Studio's C++ is (aside from a few corner cases) standard C++.

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Mats

For the most part Visual C++ now uses standard C++, like matsp stated. There are obviously certain libraries that are not standard for all OS's, but that is the case with any OS.

Shame on your grader for not knowing C well enough.

Shame on both of you for even mentioning Visual Basic.

Haha. I appoligize. And im talking about the visual part of it. the whole add form... ill place my text box here, point and click. I agree David with the os specific libraries. But like I said im talking about the visual part of it. I realize that it makes it easier to make gui applications. But mainly my question is on its effect on the language itself.

It does not destroy anything.
C++ does not have anything in its standard for GUI, so technically it cannot destroy anything.
The only "poor" thing is that it is all C. API is in C, and thus the whole forms are plain C.
It would have been better if there was a C++ alternative to the whole GUI thingy in Windows.
But the visual part... it is quite a blessing, if you ask me, and it is a very sad thing that C++ does not have anything GUI-related in its standard.

> It would have been better if there was a C++ alternative to the whole GUI thingy in Windows.
Heard of MFC?

Yes, I have, and no, it is nowhere near good enough.
A lot of times it is just a simple wrapper, but make no mistake - when it comes to GUI, I always use MFC.
But one must remember also that MFC is not free. And I must admit, I was thinking a little more about the API as a whole - all of API in C++ form. Dreams, you know.

Thanks guys!

I thought VS/.NET C++ was managed? In which case that is garbage (excuse the pun) and does ruin C++... but if it's not anymore, when did MS change that? because I'd expect that would have broken a loooot of code.

Originally Posted by @nthony

I thought VS/.NET C++ was managed? In which case that is garbage (excuse the pun) and does ruin C++... but if it's not anymore, when did MS change that? because I'd expect that would have broken a loooot of code.

Only if you compile it with the /CLR switch to make it C++/CLI code. Otherwise VC++ is perfectly capable of being a standard C++ compiler and IDE.

There are also dialog resources which VS's resource editor can help to make.
They are typically used in Native environments and Windows to visually create dialogs.
MFC works with them, too.
Although in terms of functionality, Windows Forms are way better, yes.

You cannot get by without knowing C++, even when using all of MFC's wizards to their fullest. They simply don't do anything beyond writing some repetitive code.

Unfortunately the grader had a hard time with my C code so i had to redo it.

So the grader is not good enough and that means you have to redo the work?
Or was your code so atrociously unreadable that a normal human cannot be expected to read it?