Working with MFC (what's your opinion)

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Hello,
I am an MFC developer, &
I need to know your opinion here about MFC desktop apps development:
IS M$ Visual C++ 6.0 SP6 enough to develop MFC desktop apps,
OR should I install a newer version of M$ Visual Studio sash as M$ Visual Studio 2012
BECAUSE I am feeling that a newer version of M$ Visual Studio is VERY HEAVY to use only MFC on M$ Windows XP Operating System.

Thank you for your understanding.

Posted 14-Sep-12 14:38pm

Mr. Tomay

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Sergey Alexandrovich Kryukov 14-Sep-12 22:36pm

I think the question is not what to use to develop with MFC; the question is: using MFC or not. To me, it's hard to understand why using MFC at all.
--SA

Mr. Tomay 15-Sep-12 9:56am

If so, then Microsoft should stop supporting MFC a long time ago, as for The Code Project.
See my Jesse Chisholm244 comment

Sergey Alexandrovich Kryukov 16-Sep-12 23:39pm

This is not logical at all. This is not just like commercial stuff works. The seller always want to sell things, but do you always buy what a seller pushes on you. The seller will sell a product as long as there are enough fools to buy it. There is also such think as reputation... Companies use different approach to this...
--SA

Richard MacCutchan 15-Sep-12 6:07am

If you need to develop in MFC then you should upgrade to VS2010 at the minimum.

Mr. Tomay 15-Sep-12 9:59am

Are you telling me that there are many enhancements on MFC in VS 2010 !?

Richard MacCutchan 15-Sep-12 10:17am

Yes, the later versions are sure to have enhancements and bug fixes over VC++ 6, which is now very old.

Mr. Tomay 15-Sep-12 10:19am

Thank you very much for you opinion
See my "Jesse Chisholm244" comment

Sergey Alexandrovich Kryukov 16-Sep-12 23:40pm

I think anything starting from VS2005 is good enough...
--SA

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Jesse Chisholm · Accepted Answer · 2012-09-16T05:59:00

Solution 1

To complete Richard MacCutchen's response, ...
Here is a Wikipedia article[^] showing the history of MFC across the versions of the IDE.

ON THE ONE HAND: If you are happy with the level of features and stability and bugs in your compiler, and the "heavy weight" of getting a better IDE is more important to you, then you can continue using your current IDE.

ON THE OTHER HAND: But if any of the additional features, or bug fixes, or improvements in stability are essential to you (as they are to Richard and I and others) then you will move to the latest and greatest IDE.

BUT ON THE GRIPPING HAND: To grow as a developer, perhaps it is time to learn a new package beyond MFC. As Sergey says, To use MFC or not to use MFC, that is the question.

Take a look at C#, and WPF and the Prism framework on CodePlex[^].

I think you will like them.

-Jesse

Posted 16-Sep-12 5:59am

Jesse Chisholm

Updated 16-Sep-12 6:01am

v2

Comments

Mr. Tomay 16-Sep-12 14:31pm

- I am using MFC because it is portable like NOKIA Qt or gtk or Borland Delphi 7.0 or Borland C++ Builder 6.0, so you don't have to install any additional frameworks (.NET Framework 3.5 has 231 MB of size)
- I have seen that most of the apps installed on my desktop are portable apps (µTorrent, Notepad++, 7-Zip File Manager, Mozilla Firefox, Media Player Classic, Beyond Compare 3, Internet Download Manager, gBurner, PowerISO, mIRC, 010 Editor, ...) and many other desktop apps that most people of the world install them to there desktops.
- I have seen that most of the .NET apps are HEAVY to load on start.
- MFC + Codejock Xtreme Toolkit Professional = a great development toolkit (for me).
All of these properties and features of MFC made me use it.

Jesse Chisholm 16-Sep-12 18:42pm

Excellent reasons for sticking with C/C++ as opposed to C#.

Most of the "weight" in C# programs is the .NET Framework, which is often already on the user's PC. But if the version of .NET you need isn't, then the install weight is heavy indeed.

If you are leaning towards open source, then check out OpenMFC: http://openmfc.codeplex.com/ though it appears to be still under development.

-Jesse

Sergey Alexandrovich Kryukov 16-Sep-12 23:41pm

There are so many hands here... :-), so I could not go away without voting 5. :-)
--SA

Jesse Chisholm 17-Sep-12 1:36am

The reference to "The Gripping Hand" is a reference to "A Mote in God's Eye" by David Brin. Well worth the time to find it and read it.

-Jesse

Sergey Alexandrovich Kryukov 17-Sep-12 2:02am

Thank you.
--SA