My colleagues are using Visual Studio 2002 and uses the C++ MFC. I am developing in C #.
It has not been any problems before, but now questioning our customers if we really should develop in different environments. My colleagues think (of course) that I should move to C++ MFC. I think that they can use .NET instead of MFC.
Is there any point to learn the MFC? It feels a bit outmoded, or am I wrong? What are the arguments against and for .NET compared with MFC?
Edit:
We are developing process systems and assistance applications for the nuclear industry. The main application is an emulator that emulates an old computer system and uses C++/MFC. It is very time critical, maybe the core should it still be in native C++. But the GUI to the emulator and all surrounding applications are not particularly critical.
And is there any real reason that you should replace the existing MFC application?
I’ve used both MFC and Windows Forms extensively for a very long time. I’m from the video game industry, so have had to write many desktop applications over the years, and before .net, MFC was extremely useful. Even before that I was writing tools in pure Win32.
MFC definitely had its quirks, but overall it made life a lot easier. It was very easy to integrate OpenGL and Direct3D into custom views, and once you got the hang of it writing custom controls was a piece of cake. Best of all, I could just code in pure C++, which just happened to be my language of choice. Plus I found MFC to be very efficient and snappy.
Gradually MFC started to get external control library support, particularly docking/toolbar libraries, so my tools like 3D model viewers and level editors, all looked pretty sweet.
Most applications I wrote created the UI programmatically, so the dialog/window layout tool was more than adequate for my needs.
MFC 9 is pretty cool too, especially with the Ribbon control/docking library that Microsoft has released as part of the Feature Pack. So there is life in the old dog yet, for sure! 🙂
When .net 1.0 came out I found the transition fairly easy, because it supported managed C++. It wasn’t pretty, but gave a relatively straightforward on-ramp to the .net framework. But the tipping point for me came when I started to write tools that needed the Windows Forms Designer more, around the time of .net 2.0. I decided to start again and learn C#, which I loved – although I’ll never get used to having new() without delete() ;). I then started writing user controls, finding the whole experience very nice and straightforward. The .net framework was huge, well supported, and generally I found it easier to do just about everything in C#/.net. Plus, compilation was lightning fast, and the ability to refactor in Visual Studio was awesome.
The beauty of c#/.net is it doesn’t limit you to just writing in managed code. You can still use unmanaged code, if performance is an issue for instance, or if you need to share code between platforms. For instance, my math libraries are written in C/C++, which I put into a libraries enabling C# to wrap/use the same code, although that’s only temporary. I’m going to port those libraries to C# in time too so everything is pure .net.
The last experience I want to mention is that I have been spending the last few months away from console game programming, and spending time programming the InterWeb. I’ve been using the Microsoft stack, programming in ASP.net/C#, and I have to say it’s very nice, with all of the knowledge of C# directly applicable. The only learning curve was ASP.net, not the language and support libraries. With the arrival of .net 3.5 (LINQ is sweet) life in the .net framework with C# is lovely.
Anyway, I don’t want to turn this into my life’s story, but I just wanted to give a brief experience of someone who has moved through all of the technology you’ve asked about. I’d also like to mention that it’s good for you to try different languages/frameworks. I’ve been coding for the iPhone for a year now, and have grown to really like Objective-C. It’s all programming, and it’s all good.
With respect to MFC/.net, both have their pluses and minuses, and I really don’t mind MFC at all, but in terms of moving forward, I’d probably stick to C#/.net, but please, please, please understand how it works. The only preachy thing I’ll say is to understand how memory in .net works, even though ‘it’s all taken care of for you’ 😉
Your knowledge of C/C++ should be completely independent of whether you use MFC or not, it’s still a critical language (particularly in console-based video game programming), but for desktop application programming on Windows, it’s getting harder and harder to argue against .net. It’s fast, easy, has great tool support, excellent 3rd party libraries, a huge growing community, is now cross platform (Mono) and will enable you to move between all current/emerging Microsoft technologies (ASP.net, WPF, Silverlight, WCF etc).
For all of this, though, I still set up Visual Studio as a C++ environment. Some habits never die 😉