Defending C++, and Other Considerations

-- John Swenson, letters editorHorrible set of circumstances, repriseAfter having read the latest "Letters to MSDN" column, I couldn't restrain myself from addressing the comment made by Jeff Petersen, who was wondering what "horrible set of circumstances" would drive one to become a C++ developer.How about the need to write a device driver?Or a Windows CE ActiveSync provider? Or an app that interfaces heavily with the telephony API and multiport devices? Or a small, fast NT service?I've had occasion to write all of the above, and trying to write them in Visual Basic would be highly challenging at best, an exercise in masochism at worst. What about clean exception handling, bought to our attention so adroitly by Robert Schmidt? Even a simple 'On Error' statement in Visual Basic can end up with lots of messy GOTOs, the bane of the maintenance programmer.I am not one of the purists who believe Visual Basic is evil incarnate. It certainly has Visual C++ beat when it comes to rapid UI development. Another point in its favor is its quantity of devotees, making code snippets and helpful advice easier to come by. For example, recently I tried to find some examples of ADO functions and found that 99-percent of the samples available are in Visual Basic, thanks no doubt to the sheer mass of Visual Basic programmers out there.That said, Visual C++ is far and away the winner when it comes to speed of execution and ease of access to the system functions. Furthermore, MFC's many classes make it a good deal easier than it used to be to build an attractive, well-behaved, function-rich app.Introductory books I'd recommend are Learn Microsoft Visual C++ 6.0 Now, published by Microsoft Press, which can be used by both C programmers moving to C++ as well as those who have never used either language. Another is Visual C++ 6 Programming Blue Book, published by Coriolis, a very readable, fast-paced introduction to both C++ and the development environment.Who knows, Jeff, maybe someday you'll be wondering what horrible set of circumstances could make you switch back to Visual Basic!Sandra WalterAnother staunch C++ defenderRegarding the comment in last month's Letters to MSDN column that only a "horrible set of circumstances" could drive someone to become a C++ developer, you asked if that is true.I, for one, take the opposite stand, fearing the "horrible set of circumstances" that could lead someone to become a Visual Basic developer (or a mainframe COBOL programmer, for that matter!). After nearly 20 years of development experience ranging from Basic to Fortran, Pascal to C, and Java to C++, I still find programming as much fun (or more) as ever. This is largely due to the richness of C++ and technologies like COM and the STL, which I can use to create solutions to whatever comes my way - something definitely NOT true for Visual Basic or Java.Vive la C++!Carl DanielAnd more...In reply to Jeff Petersen -- I too was originally baffled by C++, but now, especially in the COM world we live in, you will have to pry it out of my cold, dead hands.Paul HillEditor: Were gratified to see this outpouring of support for C++, after last months slanderous remarks by a Visual Basic® developer.Book requestI just wanted to thank Mr. Clinick for his uniformly useful, informative, helpful, and pleasant-to-read "Voice.""Scripting Clinic" is a fascinating galaxy of technologies, and Mr. Clinick's "Voice" fully reflects this fascinating array of possibilities.*Bravo*! Every MSDN author should be as good.I think he should write a whole book about scripting technologies and tools (as well as some of the main object-models that make those tools and technologies so incredibly useful!).Alex MartelliUncle Edd and JuniorGuest columnist Alan McBee has provided one of the most amusing, and incongruous, preambles to a technical article I have ever come across, in the Sept. 20 "Extreme XML" column.Just to clear up a possible point of confusion right away, I am not Charlie Heinemann's ghostwriter, nor is he mine. Charlie has had a wonderful time using XML to help his cousin, Uncle Edd, and Junior, Jenny, the intern from Ottawa, and everyone in the world who needed to keep track of their New Kids on the Block albums. However, Charlie needed to focus on some other projects right no, so I've stepped in. I think Mr. McBee should become a permanent contributing writer to the column, and rename it Jed Clampett's Web Wiz Biz Talk.William McNameeFeet lickingHoard the Black Coffee (Oct. 11 "Stones Way" column) was one of Victor Stone's best articles. I can easily identify with many of the scenarios visualized by Victor. We definitely need more such introspections in all the work we do. Unfortunately, feet licking and saying, "Yes, boss" is part of the accepted culture at most software organizations. Please accept my congratulations on such a great piece and keep up the good work. In fact, the signature on all my e-mails now carries the Victor Stone saying:Don't Belong. Never join. Think for yourself. Peace. - Victor StoneRegards,Manikandan ChandrasekaranHard to readI go through the MSDN material often to brush up my skills. It is very useful and organized very nicely.However, I find it extremely tough to read due to very small font, especially on the small 15" monitor. Just now while reading COM material, I could not continue after a while. This induced me to write this letter to you immediately. Please provide some mechanism (such as the Acrobat PDF reader) to zoom in/out on each page so that one can adjust the font to suit his or her comfort. This will make the fruitful tour of MSDN enjoyable to eyes.Also, it would help to provide arrows to navigate to next or previous topic at the bottom as well as at the top of each page. In the natural course of reading, people read a topic from top to bottom and then want to move to next topic. For that, you now have to return to the top of the topic, which is annoying.Makarand HiralikarEditor: Well pass your suggestion along to the team that is currently redesigning the MSDN Online site. Thanks for the input. In the meantime, please note that you can bump up the font size from, in Internet Explorer, the View menu. Select Text Size, and choose a larger size. You'll get a horizontal scrollbar for the menu at the top, but the article text will still fit on the screen (also, if you're in the Library or Web Workshop, it may help to hide the TOC).Impressed by the CoolbarWOW!! As someone very new to Web programming, I was very impressed by the DHTML Coolbar (Sept. 20 "Code Corner"). I'm going to figure out a way that I can implement this into my company's intranet.Thanks,Michael Dean