Re: I wonder if Windows REALLY support the C++ language
From: John Carson (donaldquixote_at_datafast.net.au)
Date: 06/14/04
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Date: Tue, 15 Jun 2004 01:52:20 +1000
"David F" <David-White@earthlink.net> wrote in message
news:4h9zc.4246$Wr.2326@newsread1.news.pas.earthlink.net
> "John Carson" <donaldquixote@datafast.net.au> wrote in message
>>
>> It is extremely relevant. You are obviously having difficulty
>> navigating the documentation. Everyone does initiallly. Much of the
>> difficulty is because there is so much of it.
>>
>
> I disagree. Just to borrow from data structures and programming world
> and for illustration, watch Google’s search time and the # of web
> pages they search. As oppose to the common belief that the larger the
> memory/data container is, so is the search time (and sometimes worse
> than linear growth), if things are done right, by theory it is not
> true – the search time does not have to grow more than by a very
> small fraction of the capacity growth. Indeed, even though Google
> came late to the business but with a larger selection of web pages
> (this number has always been displayed on their home page), they were
> immediately by far faster than all the competition. (This was one
> major contributor to the demise of the rest since with them search
> took forever.) If you would follow, since then, that number of pages
> grew by about a magnitude of order (to about 4.3B), yet the search
> time (displayed after each search) barely grew by few percentages.
>
> So should have been with MS’ documentation – that is, if they would be
> competent enough and there would be no morbid reasons (as usually in
> life, reality is that it is probably a combination of both).
The issue is not search time. Searches of the MSDN documentation are quick
(especially on disk). The issue is that searches (and the index and the
table of contents) turn up both information you want and information you
don't. Google also gives lots of unwanted information. As it happens, Google
does better keyword searches than MSDN. Fortunately if you want to use
Google for MSDN keyword searches, then you can. See
http://www.google.com/microsoft
This, however, is less useful than defining a decent filter, as I have
already suggested. You are right that huge amounts of information can be
managed --- filters is one of the main ways to do it and if you won't make a
filter, then you won't manage the information well (I agree that MS could
have provided a C/C++ filter ready-made, but a programmer shouldn't consider
this a major hurdle --- it is very minor compared to the problems
programmers are expected to solve).
>>> Secondly, in the meanwhile,
>>> MS gives me hard time when trying to use C/C++ by trying to coerce
>>> me into C# & VB.
>>
>> Not much more than it, say, coerces VB programmers to use C/C++.
>>
> Some people think like the phrase: ”A sorrow shared is a sorrow
> halved”
>
> Another group thinks like the phrase: ”A sorrow shared is a fool’s
> comfort”
The sharing of the sorrow is relevant in assessing whether the difficulties
with the documentation are part of a grand plan to direct people to MS
proprietary technologies as you seemed to be implying.
> I happen to belong to the latter group. So it is no comfort that Basic
> programmers are having similar problems. Besides, from my readings in
> the last week in MS Press books, the situation is definitely far from
> being symmetric at least.
The fashionable topics in MS Press books is a different issue to whether the
MSDN documentation is less convenient for C/C++ users than for users of
other languages.
> I still insist that logic suggest that they would at least show
> programming for Windows as much as for console.
The distinction is between GUI and console programming, not Windows and
console programming.
> Also, bare in mind
> that even though what you say is true, many, especially advanced
> features and in conjunction with using multi-windowing GUI, become
> immaterial when using one text based window.
Actually, the most basic GUI program (particularly when written without
wizards and such) is much more complicated that a basic console program ---
a fact that has been distressing novices for many years. A "Hullo World"
program requires knowledge of window classes, message loops, window
procedures and device contexts for starters. It is therefore not surprising
that a brief introduction would choose to focus on console programming. MSDN
has massive amounts on GUI programming. In any case, introductory booklets
for most products are useless so I never approach those for MS products with
any great expectation.
-- John Carson 1. To reply to email address, remove donald 2. Don't reply to email address (post here instead)
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