MSVC++ app type choice, form design questions
- From: Frnak McKenney <frnak@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 08 Apr 2005 03:25:09 GMT
If anyone has a few minutes to spare, I would appreciate hearing
some advice regarding MSVC++ (and possibly an alternative
development environment).
For the first time in a couple of years I'm back to standalone
application development. I've used C, assembler, and xxxBasic
extensively in the past (including some QBasic/ASM stuff best
forgotten <grin>), and I used MSAccess VBA and MSVC(5?) a few years
back, so my first instinct was to pick up a copy of the
latest-n-greatest MS C++ product, MSVC++.NET.2K3.
I've noticed... er, "a few changes", but I built a few sample apps
just to see how the parts fit together and it wasn't too bad. In
other words I can work with it, but there are some very general
things that aren't clear from the (overwhelming?) documentation,
and which seem to be causing roadblocks in my... learning curve?
(Whoops! Mixed metaphor). If anyone can clear them up it would be
extremely helpful.
Background: I'm building a "standalone" customer application for
deployment to the customer's clients. It is primarily a small
multi-table database application with four or five examine/edit
screens, several "summary report" screens, and a number of printed
reports. Row counts for the tables range from 100-2000.
In other words, I'll be spending a _lot_ more time on screen layout
(moving fields around and making them look "neat"), handling data
entry and data access, and creating a custom deployable CD than I
will on sophisticated internal logic (and stuff like OLE and
"genetic algorithms" are Right Out! <grin>).
Queries:
1) MSVC Project definition requires that for an MFC app I choose
between MDI, SDI, and dialog-based. At first I thought this
would be a dialog-based app, but it is possible that an SDI app
would be more appropriate. Can anyone point me at some examples
to help me figure out which makes more sense?
Or is this one of those things that, unless you _need_ a
"document" drawing/printing/text editing window, really doesn't
matter much once your app gets beyond the "example" stage of
complexity?
2) MSVCC++.NET comes with access support for a number of database
environments. However, it's not clear from the documentation
how much of the support _comes_ with the MSVC++ package and
how much needs to be already present in the end-user's
environment.
I'd guess <grin> that full Oracle and Sybase support aren't
bundled, but -- without purchasing any other software -- could
I create an MSVC++ standalone app that could be installed on
MSWin2K and MSWinXP machines that could create and update
(say) an Access database?
What if Access had never been installed on the target machine?
Does MSVC++.NET provide all the DLLs I would need to access
and update the .mdb file? Could I include an empty .msb
database and update it?
I don't need SQL (but would use it if it were already provided).
How about with dBase/FoxBase?
Or should I plan on either purchasing a 3rd-party addin or
using plain text files?
Finally, there's the choice of development environment. I had
assumed that the amount of effort required to build this app would
be about the same whether I used MSVC++, MSVB, or something similar.
After several hours' reading of the MSVC-related newsgroups this
evening, I'm prompted to ask this:
3) Would this job be much simpler if I switched to MSVB.NET?
I've seen several comments that seem to hint that at least the
screen design portion would be much easier in VB, especially
if my customer wants all of the screens laid out differently
half-way through the project (don't they all? <grin>).
At this point in the project I could switch to VB if it looked
to be a better choice. I'm much less worried about the cost
of MSVB.NET or the time to (re-)learn it than I am about using
the best tool for the job... or at least a measurably more
effective tool, if one exists.
Any comments or suggestions will be appreciated.
Frank McKenney, McKenney Associates
Richmond, Virginia / (804) 320-4887
MungedAddr:frank uscore mckenney ayut mahndspring dawt cahm, y'all
--
Knowledge does not necessarily imply judgment. All truly
critical, as against technical, argument is either intuitive or
hypothetical or partial. This cannot be compensated for by a
study of the raw material, however exhaustive.
-- Robert Conquest, "The Dragons of Expectation"
--
.
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