Re: Are _T() and TEXT() macros equivalent?

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Tom Serface wrote:

Hi David,

You have to wonder about Microsoft's goal with C++. Why would they not want C++ to be best for creating Windows applications? What other kinds of applications would they want to encourage? Perhaps they've yielded the Windows application battle to C# and they just want to look good at the standards meetings? Not much profit in that.

Tom

"David Ching" <dc@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:TueSh.6740$Kd3.3025@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx


That's my point. If Microsoft is serious about improving native C++ Windows development, they'll make some sacrifices with being standard compliant. But they've shown no interest in doing that, and in fact are touting their future releases as being even more standard compliant. That's why I'm making the case that C++ is not now, and will be even less so in the future, the optimum way of creating Windows apps. As someone who's devoted my career to writing Windows apps in C++, this is not to my liking at all.

David/Tom:

I do a lot of cross-platform work and for me standards compliance is a very important thing. Now that MS has finally gotten this right, they would be very foolish to back off on it, IMHO.

There is a non-Windows C++ world out there, and if those folks come to see VC++ as a quality, standard-compliant platform, it can only help the language.

And I do not see standards-compliance as being an impediment to writing windows programs. Rather I see the problems for C++ in writing Windows programs as

1. MFC is a dinosaur, and has also not kept up with the PSDK in recent years.

2. WTL, which perhaps has the potential to be a better alternative, is not really supported.

3. Despite heroic efforts (now perhaps being scaled back) C++/CLI is not a first-class .NET language. C# is the heir to the .NET kingdom, and C++ will not be able to stop that.

--
David Wilkinson
Visual C++ MVP
.

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