C++ CLI interest

[Cholo Lennon]

Is my impression or people are losing their interest in C++ CLI? Google
statistics shows that the newsgroup activity level is falling down month after
month...

http://groups.google.com/group/microsoft.public.dotnet.languages.vc/about

The question about this newsgroup activity level is: Is it a good representation
of the reality of C++ CLI?


Regards

 

[David Lowndes]

Is my impression or people are losing their interest in C++ CLI? Google

statistics shows that the newsgroup activity level is falling down month after
month...

http://groups.google.com/group/microsoft.public.dotnet.languages.vc/about

The question about this newsgroup activity level is: Is it a good representation
of the reality of C++ CLI?

Newsgroup promotion is definitely on a downturn with MS - the emphasis
is on their unwieldy forums.

What's the activity like on the forums?

Dave

 

[Edward Diener]

Is my impression or people are losing their interest in C++ CLI? Google
statistics shows that the newsgroup activity level is falling down month after
month...

http://groups.google.com/group/microsoft.public.dotnet.languages.vc/about

The question about this newsgroup activity level is: Is it a good representation
of the reality of C++ CLI?

C++/CLI has already been declared as a second class .Net language by
Microsoft's own VC++ development team. Microsoft's obvious decision not
to have it support either new .Net 3+ technologies with VS2008 ( WPF,
WCF, WWF, LINQ ) and the previous lack of support in it for ASP .Net
clearly show that C++/CLI is intended only to be a niche .Net language.
That niche currently is as a glue between .Net and native Windows
technologies but even that will probably be phased out in the future
before Microsoft drops all .Net support in VC++.

I wish this were all not so but one would have to be a fool to think,
from the obvious evidence, that Microsoft is not going to throw all
their weight behind C# as far as .Net goes, and eventually leave C++/CLI
to fall by the wayside. After all the "big" news in VS2008 and VC++ is
the improvd MFC ( yech !!! ) and C++ standard library support. Golly I
am just thrilled that as a C++ programmer I am being told to use that
wonderful RAD technology MFC as opposed to the .Net framework.

The truth must be faced that the "support" ( or failure thereof ) for
C++ and .Net was just a dog and pony show to grab C++ programmers and
turn them into C# .Net programmers.

Meek and mild C++ programmers, ever so grateful to be thrown whatever
bones were left from the .Net table, went along with the whole farce
without the slightest sign of protest or anger, led by Sutter and
Lippman, and now they have ended up with just what they deserve.

 

[Semmel]

Hi Edward,

yes you are right, I feel like someone is pulling my leg too. To the
list of unsupported features I'd like to add the Settings Designer for
Windows::Forms applications. One might ridicule me, since it is just a
small tool. But when you have just finished your winform app and want
to quickly add some user settings, this really catches you off-guard.
(You have to code the settings file entirely by hand, and thats about
7 lines of code for a single setting.) In conclusion I think you
should not attempt to write medium or even large programs for the
desktop in C++/CLI.
By the way, did you know that the brand-new STL/CLR and the standard
STL containers (when compiled with /clr) are a way slower compared
to .net collections? (see http://www.voidnish.com/Articles/ShowArticle.aspx?code=StlClrBclComparison)

However I have enjoyed coding C++/CLI, because I have learned a lot
programming concepts (delegates, events, collections, regexp..) which
I can benefit from when coding in the next C++ standard C++0x. On the
other hand, when I need to write programs that are "simple" tools with
a fancy GUI on Windows I should really move to C#.

Semmel