4 ms·

> Used to be, if you bought a compiler like Visual C++, it came with a book (printed on paper) that was readable and useful and helpful. Some time ago i found

by Crinus 7y ago

> Used to be, if you bought a compiler like Visual C++, it came with a book (printed on paper) that was readable and useful and helpful. Some time ago i found a copy of Borland C++ for Windows 3.1 in its original box on eBay. The box was actually a cube and inside 99% of it was books, including references and guides for everything as well as Petzold's book for programming Windows. Sadly the cost was too much for me, but it was incredible how much documentation Borland provided (although that box was most likely an outlier, other Borland products like Delphi had more regular boxes, but still came with several books). Having said that, in Visual C++ at least since Visual C++ 6 there wasn't much printed documentation - although the dual CD MSDN docs it came with are golden.

raverbashing 7y ago
Ah yes the "good times" Too bad Visual C++ was much, much clunkier than Borland C++, it was not even fun. But true, the amount of good info found on those CDs was amazing.
- Crinus 7y ago
  Depends which versions we're talking about and if with "Borland C++" you mean the Borland C++ or the later C++ Builder. I'm going to guess the former. I have actually both BC5 (the last version that was released as "Borland C++" with the IDE going back to Win3.x times) and VC6 installed and have used older versions of VC sporadically. Visual C++ pre-VC6 was indeed clunky although i'm not sure about why as i haven't used it much, but i remember it not feeling very polished. However with VC6 Microsoft pretty much made the C++ IDE and is why even today most C++ IDEs (e.g. KDevelop, Anjuta, Code::Blocks, CodeLite, etc), many IDEs in general and even some code editors have the same basic UI layout and features. VC6 is a standard and really the only thing you may miss is tabs in the editor (but there is an addon that adds exactly that). BC5 is a nice IDE and actually, unlike VC6 (or any later version, including VS2019) is a really Iintegrated DE - the compiler is part of the IDE (you can even compile some code just by opening a text editor window and start typing code in, no need to save a file or anything, the compiler picks the source code from the editor's memory). It is also very extensible, using a C-like scripting language with dynamic typing that can access most of the IDE's features and (AFAIK, never tried it) you can write DLLs to extend the language's functionality. Personally i've only used it to modify some shortcuts from their Brief-like defaults to Windows-like defaults (e.g. Ctrl+S for save instead of -IIRC- Ctrl+K Ctrl+S...). The node-based project management also looks powerful, especially since i think you can extend it, but TBH i didn't use it much again. UI-wise it is an evolution of the original Turbo Pascal for Windows IDE they introduced with TPW 1.0 which itself was a sort of GUI evolution of their classic Turbo Vision-based IDEs introduced in TP6. TBH i do not find either of those to be too clunkier compared to the other, but i find VC6 to have some of an edge UX-wise. Previous VC versions probably will be worse though. Now if we're talking about C++ Builder, then yes, even BCB1 blows both of these out of the water.
  - raverbashing 7y ago
    Yes, I'm talking about C++ Builder The clunkiness I referred to was not so much w.r.t. the IDE (which in VC++ was ok) but the C++ API for Windows forms (and other things) C++ Builder was a breeze to use, on VC++ for example a slider (not sure the exact name) required you to filter for Windows events manually whereas in C++ Builder it was automatic but easy to customize. (Then MS hired that Borland guy to come up with .NET and everything was as it should) The other Borland C++ I used was the one where you had to worry about the memory model being Small/Large/Huge (those were not good times)
    - Crinus 7y ago
      Yeah, VCL is one of the best GUI frameworks out there (although its C++ bindings had to twist and bend and extend the language a bit to work and as a result it feels a bit awkward compared to Delphi). Although despite C#/.NET being good for that they are, WinForms even today is in several fronts (e.g. layout) worse than what you had even with Delphi 2/C++ Builder 1. It feels like it was abandoned too quickly.

by Crinus 7y ago

raverbashing 7y ago

Ah yes the "good times" Too bad Visual C++ was much, much clunkier than Borland C++, it was not even fun. But true, the amount of good info found on those CDs was amazing.

Crinus 7y ago
Depends which versions we're talking about and if with "Borland C++" you mean the Borland C++ or the later C++ Builder. I'm going to guess the former. I have actually both BC5 (the last version that was released as "Borland C++" with the IDE going back to Win3.x times) and VC6 installed and have used older versions of VC sporadically. Visual C++ pre-VC6 was indeed clunky although i'm not sure about why as i haven't used it much, but i remember it not feeling very polished. However with VC6 Microsoft pretty much made the C++ IDE and is why even today most C++ IDEs (e.g. KDevelop, Anjuta, Code::Blocks, CodeLite, etc), many IDEs in general and even some code editors have the same basic UI layout and features. VC6 is a standard and really the only thing you may miss is tabs in the editor (but there is an addon that adds exactly that). BC5 is a nice IDE and actually, unlike VC6 (or any later version, including VS2019) is a really Iintegrated DE - the compiler is part of the IDE (you can even compile some code just by opening a text editor window and start typing code in, no need to save a file or anything, the compiler picks the source code from the editor's memory). It is also very extensible, using a C-like scripting language with dynamic typing that can access most of the IDE's features and (AFAIK, never tried it) you can write DLLs to extend the language's functionality. Personally i've only used it to modify some shortcuts from their Brief-like defaults to Windows-like defaults (e.g. Ctrl+S for save instead of -IIRC- Ctrl+K Ctrl+S...). The node-based project management also looks powerful, especially since i think you can extend it, but TBH i didn't use it much again. UI-wise it is an evolution of the original Turbo Pascal for Windows IDE they introduced with TPW 1.0 which itself was a sort of GUI evolution of their classic Turbo Vision-based IDEs introduced in TP6. TBH i do not find either of those to be too clunkier compared to the other, but i find VC6 to have some of an edge UX-wise. Previous VC versions probably will be worse though. Now if we're talking about C++ Builder, then yes, even BCB1 blows both of these out of the water.
- raverbashing 7y ago
  Yes, I'm talking about C++ Builder The clunkiness I referred to was not so much w.r.t. the IDE (which in VC++ was ok) but the C++ API for Windows forms (and other things) C++ Builder was a breeze to use, on VC++ for example a slider (not sure the exact name) required you to filter for Windows events manually whereas in C++ Builder it was automatic but easy to customize. (Then MS hired that Borland guy to come up with .NET and everything was as it should) The other Borland C++ I used was the one where you had to worry about the memory model being Small/Large/Huge (those were not good times)
  - Crinus 7y ago
    Yeah, VCL is one of the best GUI frameworks out there (although its C++ bindings had to twist and bend and extend the language a bit to work and as a result it feels a bit awkward compared to Delphi). Although despite C#/.NET being good for that they are, WinForms even today is in several fronts (e.g. layout) worse than what you had even with Delphi 2/C++ Builder 1. It feels like it was abandoned too quickly.