|
But seriously...
Coexistence? These tools make the Borg look like touchy-feely New Age pop psychologists!
Sh!tt!ng all over the entire system? Why should we care? We're not supposed to be running any non-Microsoft stuff, and they'll make bloody well sure we have to WORK for it if we want to...
(and on, and on, ad infinitum, ad nauseum, ad ware)
I have a client who just got talked into a completely automated build/SCM environment; developers throw things over the wall by checking in files, which get tagged, build process gets fired up, a successful build triggers automated testing, reports get emailed to the various stakeholders, you know the drill. They're trying to figure out how to transition off VS98's command-line tools (developers can use the VS98 IDE or any third-party editor they want). They've got pilot copies of VS 2005, and they're Not Happy, for just the sort of reasons you lay out (very well, I might add). They do basic black-box development; customers buy boxes that run XP (another soon-to-be-headache), hook them up to their LAN, and do everything over the network via a set of MFC-based client programs. If this all sounds terribly early-90s, there's a reason for that; the system in one form or another has been around that long.
They've been coasting along in a Microsoft world for a long time, now that world "is changing in ways that don't seem to really help", as the CTO has been saying lately. They've stayed with MS because their clients are "quite conservative" and because their people know the toolchain they've been using... but now they're starting to wonder if life wouldn't be better Somewhere Else.
I have a really hard time believing that these guys are at all unique, or even terribly atypical. If SteveB really thinks the way to maintain world domination is "developers, developers, developers", then he'd better start thinking real hard about how to keep selling products and services to folks who basically can't change hardware platforms as often as he changes his shorts. Given an apparent tradeoff between a knowable, working platform and the Latest And Greatest SHIny new Thing, the former *always* wins (these guys haven't had a serious or severe defect in their code on a production (24/7/365) system in almost *10 years*). But if a vendor does something stupid like cancel their entire technical world in an attempt to get them to crap buckets of cash to the same vendor to do the exact same business activity...then things start getting "interesting".
This is gonna get greasy...
--
Jeff Dickey jdickey@seven-sigma.com
Seven Sigma Software and Services
Phone/SMS: +65 9360 1820
FOAF: http://www.seven-sigma.com/foaf.rdf
Yahoo! IM: jeff_dickey
ICQ: 8053918
Tencent QQ: 30302349
-- If you can't reach me by any of these, one of us may be permanently offline --
I use and recommend GNU Privacy Guard to authenticate and secure email messages!
Public key: Download from public servers - Key ID EBCCBD6C
Fingerprint: Fingerprint: EC0A A53B 3FF3 043B 9C11 7006 55A6
|
|
|
|
|
Well for starters Microsoft vs. Microsoft coexistence would be nice...
As for the VS98 command line tools: Except for the option to launch the VS98 IDE in a command line mode to autobuild projects, most of the other command line tools are still there in VS2005, provided you ignore the "advice" given in the documentation. They even have new features and bugfixes in them
(like x64 support, code validation options etc.). And unlike the VS2005 IDE, the VS2005 traditional
command line tools can be run in an XCOPY-install (with a few weeks of hard work), thus avoiding
running the VS2005 installer on the rock-stable automated build server.
Just too bad the VS2003/2005 IDE can no longer produce a traditional Makefile itself, but then the
VS98 generated ones were not exactly following best practice anyway.
And yes, I "know the drill", having actually built and maintained (most of) such as system, with full
support for mixing Microsoft C compilers version 6.0 (16 bit) to 14.0 (64 bit) inclusive. And it is 95% Microsoft technology with a few additional tools from elsewhere (such as a zip file packer).
This message is hasty and is not to be taken as serious, professional or legally binding.
I work with low level C/C++ in user and kernel mode, but also dabble in other areas.
|
|
|
|
|
CListCtrl
Vasudevan Deepak Kumar
Personal Homepage
Tech Gossips
A pessimist sees only the dark side of the clouds, and mopes; a philosopher sees both sides, and shrugs; an optimist doesn't see the clouds at all - he's walking on them. --Leonard Louis Levinson
|
|
|
|
|
Vasudevan Deepak K wrote: CListCtrl
Nobody can give you wiser advice than yourself. - Cicero
.·´¯`·->Rajesh<-·´¯`·.
Codeproject.com: Visual C++ MVP
|
|
|
|
|
The legendary figure of every survey right?
Vasudevan Deepak Kumar
Personal Homepage
Tech Gossips
A pessimist sees only the dark side of the clouds, and mopes; a philosopher sees both sides, and shrugs; an optimist doesn't see the clouds at all - he's walking on them. --Leonard Louis Levinson
|
|
|
|
|
Tell me what this CListCtrl all about? What made you start this thread? I just don't get it.
Nobody can give you wiser advice than yourself. - Cicero
.·´¯`·->Rajesh<-·´¯`·.
Codeproject.com: Visual C++ MVP
|
|
|
|
|
Sorry - that information you requested is on a purely "need-to-know" basis;
"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein
"How do you find out if you're unwanted if everyone you try to ask tells you to go away?" - Balboos HaGadol
|
|
|
|
|
Rajesh R Subramanian wrote: Tell me what this CListCtrl all about?
How did you manage to get MVP title if you don't know anything about that? 
Mostly, when you see programmers, they aren't doing anything. One of the attractive things about programmers is that you cannot tell whether or not they are working simply by looking at them. Very often they're sitting there seemingly drinking coffee and gossiping, or just staring into space. What the programmer is trying to do is get a handle on all the individual and unrelated ideas that are scampering around in his head. (Charles M Strauss)
|
|
|
|
|
Hi Vsaudevan,
Let go of it now. It's now becoming old and boring joke.
You have, what I would term, a very formal turn of phrase not seen in these isles since the old King passed from this world to the next. martin_hughes on VDK
|
|
|
|
|
Somebody should say that to him. That's soothing, Rama. 
Nobody can give you wiser advice than yourself. - Cicero
.·´¯`·->Rajesh<-·´¯`·.
Codeproject.com: Visual C++ MVP
|
|
|
|
|
You are only saying that because you don't remember where it comes from! 
We are a big screwed up dysfunctional psychotic happy family - some more screwed up, others more happy, but everybody's psychotic joint venture definition of CP
blog: TDD - the Aha! | Linkify!| FoldWithUs! | sighist
|
|
|
|
|
For god's sake, Muttley, do something, I will give you a medal if you stop using this CListCtrl thing.
Nuclear launch detected
|
|
|
|
|
|
Of course you're not an MFC programmer. 
// "In the end it's a little boy expressing himself." Yanni
while (I_am_alive)
{
cout<<"I love programming.";
}
|
|
|
|
|
What... Mostly Forgotten Code (MFC)???
Yes... I know MFC .. still use it once in a great while...
But by now you should be able to code pretty much all of the MFC stuff blindfolded with one hand... (right?)
What do you need old technology for? Move on...
|
|
|
|
|
M i s t e r L i s t e r wrote: Mostly Forgotten Code (MFC)???
I guess not.
M i s t e r L i s t e r wrote: But by now you should be able to code pretty much all of the MFC stuff blindfolded with one hand... (right?)
Yes, but it's not a good reason to ignore native coders. The fact that native coders are able to use notepad to code and CMD to compile, is not a good reason to remove ClsddWizard from VS. If you mean now in C# most of it can be done by just using mouse, I shall say yes, but I enjoy creating my own custom creature.
M i s t e r L i s t e r wrote: What do you need old technology for?
For maintenance, .net limitations, anywhere speed is more critical than UI (Games, Hardware related stuff like drivers, Scientific softwares with huge calculations,etc), using old classes that has not an equivalent in .net, managers decision, pure fun of it, etc. To me, it's just enjoying MFC and not too much enjoying C# on desktop Apps.
// "In the end it's a little boy expressing himself." Yanni
while (I_am_alive)
{
cout<<"I love programming.";
}
|
|
|
|
|
Ask Cobol programmers how they like maintenance...
(and how they like the job market)
|
|
|
|
|
M i s t e r L i s t e r wrote: Ask Cobol programmers
Ask SAP what they did with outdated Cobol ABAP.
Ask why Vala project started.
However, this is not a way to compare or discuss, I guess.
C# is managed. It cannot and should not be compared to C++ (MFC is another story. It's just a framework not a language.), I believe.
The world still needs native code in many industries for several reasons. Now what is Microsoft offering for native coding better than C++? Again, I believe that MFC is still one of the best frameworks in Windows over C++.
Now no longer support MFC and help frameworks like QT to grow, why? because there's a need to native code that should be satisfied somehow.
// "In the end it's a little boy expressing himself." Yanni
while (I_am_alive)
{
cout<<"I love programming.";
}
|
|
|
|
|
Yes, there is still a need for native code. The other man's protest seems to be an emotional attachment to his tools or using something new. We must remember that all of these things are merely tools, and every tool has its intended purpose. If we keep ourselves from trying to use a particular tool in every circumstance, then both C#/.NET and C++/MFC can happily coexist in the IT world.
With this in mind, I'm always looking for new tools to do new things. I am currently exploring functional programming, starting with Haskel then maybe F#, for its ability to express things as relationships and potentially easy parallelization. Just another tool. If I'm doing mathematical relationships, maybe Haskel. Expressing logic, maybe PROLOG or MERCURY. Prototyping GUI's, Visual Basic 6. Web services: J2EE, .NET, or Rails. Need to do anything: Common LISP. While this may be controversial, I've found that people who use many different tools and styles have an easier time solving complex problems, as they don't look at them in just one way (limited by their tool or language of choice).
|
|
|
|
|
NimitySSJ wrote: easy parallelization
Wow! tempting. 
NimitySSJ wrote: people who use many different tools and styles have an easier time solving complex problems, as they don't look at them in just one way (limited by their tool or language of choice)
That's right but hard at the same time. Just invaluable experience during years of programming makes it possible I think. Not everyone can do it.
// "In the end it's a little boy expressing himself." Yanni
while (I_am_alive)
{
cout<<"I love programming.";
}
|
|
|
|
|
|
"Just imagine if Vista was wholly written in C# with not a native code DLL or application in the bunch...." (El Corazon)
You shouldn't speak of such things! I just imagined an OS (Cosmos 7.0, maybe) running in C#/.NET. I hope you are going to cover the bill my heart doctor sent me for what resulted.
|
|
|
|
|
NimitySSJ wrote: I hope you are going to cover the bill my heart doctor sent me for what resulted.
uh uh uh uh.... well... uhmm.... I work for MS, yeah, that's the ticket.... call me at MS... my name is... uh... bill gates, yeah, that's the ticket... bill gates!
_________________________
Asu no koto o ieba, tenjo de nezumi ga warau.
Talk about things of tomorrow and the mice in the ceiling laugh. (Japanese Proverb)
|
|
|
|
|
El Corazon wrote: Just imagine if Vista was wholly written in C# with not a native code DLL or application in the bunch....
W00t, just can't wait for that reboot time when the GAC got corrupted and Windows had to re-JIT itself before it finished loading.
|
|
|
|
|
Hamed Mosavi wrote: anywhere speed is more critical than UI (Games, Hardware related stuff like drivers, Scientific softwares with huge calculations,etc)
This is a very big reason why I use MFC 95% of the time. I develop scientific applications for medical imaging research that are very resource hungry. With the help of a 4 drive SATA hardware raid 5 my latest app loads > 1 GB of 3D image data to memory in less than 10 seconds. The second is that I have written 500K lines of MFC code.
John
|
|
|
|
|
General 
News 
Suggestion 
Question 
Bug 
Answer 
Joke 
Praise 
Rant 
Admin 
Submit an article or tip
