3 ms·

Might be totally wrong, but it's possible that MSVC++ programmers typically knowing 'C with classes' might come from the gaming world, as that's a fairly accura

Might be totally wrong, but it's possible that MSVC++ programmers typically knowing 'C with classes' might come from the gaming world, as that's a fairly accurate description of some very popular game engines (Valve's Source engine[1] being the one I'm most familiar with, where e.g. std::string is unused in favor of char/wchar arrays). [1] https://github.com/ValveSoftware/source-sdk-2013 https://github.com/ValveSoftware/source-sdk-2013 (originally released in 2004)

pjmlp 8y ago
It is a bit more complicated than that. C wasn't much used in MS-DOS, as it was yet another systems language trying to gain the place of Assembly for high performance applications. In some countries Pascal dialects (mostly TP compatible), Modula-2 reigned, while in others C and C++ were other contenders. By the time Windows (written in C) became mature enough people started caring about it (3.x), C++ was already having its place via OWL (later VCL) on the Borland side, and Microsoft eventually came up with MFC. However these were the days when C++ still didn't had a standard (which came in 1998), beyond the C++ARM book, so either you would stick with the compiler framework, or try to minimize language features for better portability. Additionally on Windows everyone was learning it via Petzold's book, where he takes the approach C compiled with C++, not even "C with Classes". Also although OWL and VCL were great OOP libraries with nice abstractions, MFC was pretty much a Win32 thin wrapper as its initial internal implementation (AFX) wasn't well received by internal MS employees as not being low level enough over Win32. So there were lots of issues going on that lead to such cases.
- tho09823ntaoent 8y ago
  Oh God, Petzold's book. What a piece of trash that was. The code, while not incorrect like the one in the article, was fairly atrocious, and the various UI things he did were unforgivable, if only because it encouraged legions of programmers to completely disregard any human interface principles. If I could erase one CS book from history, that might be the one.
- oldcynic 8y ago
  Interesting, thanks, that clears up some of mystery from the Windows side of things. Explains why so many came in who clearly had experience, but were missing most of the ++ part. Course back then STL (mostly now the standard library) was still sgi STL, and there was also RogueWave, both still fairly new and on the up.

pjmlp 8y ago

It is a bit more complicated than that. C wasn't much used in MS-DOS, as it was yet another systems language trying to gain the place of Assembly for high performance applications. In some countries Pascal dialects (mostly TP compatible), Modula-2 reigned, while in others C and C++ were other contenders. By the time Windows (written in C) became mature enough people started caring about it (3.x), C++ was already having its place via OWL (later VCL) on the Borland side, and Microsoft eventually came up with MFC. However these were the days when C++ still didn't had a standard (which came in 1998), beyond the C++ARM book, so either you would stick with the compiler framework, or try to minimize language features for better portability. Additionally on Windows everyone was learning it via Petzold's book, where he takes the approach C compiled with C++, not even "C with Classes". Also although OWL and VCL were great OOP libraries with nice abstractions, MFC was pretty much a Win32 thin wrapper as its initial internal implementation (AFX) wasn't well received by internal MS employees as not being low level enough over Win32. So there were lots of issues going on that lead to such cases.

tho09823ntaoent 8y ago
Oh God, Petzold's book. What a piece of trash that was. The code, while not incorrect like the one in the article, was fairly atrocious, and the various UI things he did were unforgivable, if only because it encouraged legions of programmers to completely disregard any human interface principles. If I could erase one CS book from history, that might be the one.
oldcynic 8y ago
Interesting, thanks, that clears up some of mystery from the Windows side of things. Explains why so many came in who clearly had experience, but were missing most of the ++ part. Course back then STL (mostly now the standard library) was still sgi STL, and there was also RogueWave, both still fairly new and on the up.