Re: Why no C++ in Windows itself?

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From: Severian (severian_at_chlamydia-is-not-a-flower.com)
Date: 02/10/05 

Date: Thu, 10 Feb 2005 11:50:30 -0500

On Wed, 9 Feb 2005 14:07:44 +0330, "Herr Lucifer"
<"\n"HerrLucifer\n@microsoft.com> wrote:

>It is a long time now that I am using "Dependency Walker for Win32" and
>navigating through different Dlls in "System32" folder to find my target API
>functions. The thing I have noticed is that, 'almost' all system .dll and
>.exe
>files are written in C and not C++. If C++ is a powerful OO language and
>it's much greater than C for large application development, then why haven't
>Microsoft used it in its operating system? Is there a compatibility issue
>here that I am not aware of? Or something else?
>---

IMHO:

For time-critical issues, smaller code size, better memory
consumption, improved control over efficiency, improved code
generation, simpler interface to assembler, and easier debugging
(especially the kernel and low-level code) the guts of Windows are
mostly written in C.

Additionally, much of the Windows (NT) kernel is based on VMS, which
was written in Bliss32 and VAX assembly, which were much easier to
implement as C.

Microsoft's C++ code (for the shell, directx, COM, etc.) are bizarre
and obfuscated anyway. Were Windows internals written in C++, I would
cry. 

--
Sev

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