I'm now studying Turbo C++. I like it so far. My concern with C# .net stuff is performance. I saw an example of that on an application called DirectAccess which is developed using C# .net. Users were complaining about slow startup time which I know this breed of apps are known for. I also played with the well known KeyPass open source app which is again using same technology. Not as much, but few users are reporting slow startup times. I will further look into this app as well. I will report later with my findings.

Thank you all gurus. Your insightful remarks are priceless since I can never find them in books. What I read in books and on web site is all one dimensional and lacks the real-life perspective.

My interest has been to develop DK apps for commercial reasons. I also have a particular interest in developing for the Palm OS on a small scale. I wanted to learn a language were I can leverage both interests. To this purpose, C++ was the way to go. I assume learning C# to start with should help a lot learning C++ as well. At least for the DK, I can now rule out mfc and native api in favor of .net.

I will be doing some research this week on the Palm OS side at PDN. I have already installed Turbo C# and will be playing with it throughout this week.


Thank you all.

As you probably can tell from this question that the I'm beginning to delve into the world of desktop development. Having spent the last 3 months getting up to speed on C++ and VS IDE, I'm at a fork road now trying to decide which way to go, C++ with native win32 or .net.

Can the gurus on this site validate my understanding of this subject and provide their insights please ...

There are 3 ways to develop windows GUI apps with C++:

• by calling win32 API directly 
• using MFC
• using .NET 

My understanding is ...

1- Using direct API calls is obsolete and is not being done nowadays.

2- Most of the existing apps are probably developed using MFC. However, this technology is gradually and officially phased out in favor of .net

3- For a starter like myself and when developing apps from scratch, is there any reason why I should NOT abandon win32 MFC projects. In other words, what does win32 offer that .net does not?

4- If I do go for C++ .net, my next dilemma is why? C++ is not, by design, optimized for the .net. I should as well just go to C#. Can anyone think of any reason why I should look back to C++ to develop my app in respect to using C# directly.

5- Almost all books I read stated that apps written in C++ .net vs. win32 compare (if not faster) response-wise and are more stable. There are, however, a very limited number of apps on the high end of industrial performance that will always benefit from win32. Is is true if my scope is simply DK development, I should NOT be concerned about any stability or performance issue developing in .net?

6- Finally, can you by looking at an app on your DK tell if it was developed via win32 vs. .net? And how? For example, are there controls that can only be used via one and not the other?


Thank you all