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Off topic - but I got to ask - what's up with Microsoft pushing C++ ? They were pushing .NET then all the sudden it's back to C++ (and JavaScript ?). Check out

Off topic - but I got to ask - what's up with Microsoft pushing C++ ? They were pushing .NET then all the sudden it's back to C++ (and JavaScript ?). Check out http://channel9.msdn.com/ http://channel9.msdn.com/, 5 out of ~9 videos about C++ on the front page. Meanwhile .NET projects like RX seem to be loosing steam, Silverlight is officially dead. I switched to JVM/Clojure so I haven't been following .NET/MS developments for the last year in detail, when did this push to native happen ? Even better question - why ? .NET finally got to a point where using C++/legacy was justified in niche areas, now they are pushing it to everything (desktop development with C++/WinRT ?) They could have picked up Mono after Novell, fund it separately (to avoid legal risks) and establish .NET as a truly cross-platform solution.

krig 15y ago
Hasn't Microsoft been switching technology completely all the time? They do seem incredibly fickle. Does anyone remember Avalon/WPF?
- rvkennedy 15y ago
  Or, indeed, Silverlight. But big companies' big technology plays sometimes work, and sometimes don't. Sometimes you get lucky (like the people who never bothered to learn .NET). But I don't think that posting this video represents a major signifier of MS' current technology stance.
- rrreese 15y ago
  WPF is used extensively for LOB apps in enterprise. It seems to have completely replaced windows forms except for legacy applications.
philbo 15y ago
I'm not sure that them pushing C++ equates to a switch away from .NET and managed code. What I take from it is that they're keen to foster a rich development eco-system on their platforms and they think that programming language diversity is an important part of this. As I write this, I realise there is a compelling counter-argument in Apple and Objective-C. So maybe not, I don't know.
- T-zex 15y ago
  Apple is not in enterprise market, not so many people write LOB apps with Objective-C.
radicalbyte 15y ago
Erm, Microsoft are massive. They have lots of customers who have vastly differing needs which generally don't compete with each other. There are a LOT of Windows applications built on C++. Most games and most intensive applications are C++ based. Their corporate business customers generally use either C# or VB.Net with a large number still supporting legacy applications in Visual Basic. Their web customers naturally use javascript/css/html for client-side and one of the managed languages server-side. So it's not surprising to see them pushing three big languages for their big (and very different) markets. Microsoft have a pretty good record of supporting their own languages. Visual Basic is still in use today dispite it being terrible. C# is very well supported, and they have a pretty good C++ compiler and toolchain. IronPython, IronRuby, J# etc were all Microsoft's attempts to "play with the cool kids", clones/forks of existing standards. All died the inevitable death when the next fad came along (see F#).
- moonchrome 15y ago
  >Most games and most intensive applications are C++ based. That's what I'm trying to say. .NET is finally in the place where it's good enough for games (except AAA titles), unlike JVM it supports value types and has true generics that can generate proper collections for them (big deal for games where a lot of the data is in small tuples of floats) and lot's of "unsafe" stuff where you get direct memory access. Mono guys even developed AOT compiler with LLVM optimizer and allowed you to drop things such as runtime bounds checking - you'd probably get to 10% of C++ code, the only remaining problem being non-deterministic GC pauses (can be worked around). Also I don't know why "intensive" applications can't be written on .NET with maybe a few drops to native C when needed. If it's scientific/cluster computing/number crunching then - I'm speculating - but I doesn't sound like you want to be running Windows anyway and Microsoft doesn't ship their C++ tools for other platforms so that doesn't sound reasonable. But we're arguing different points here. I'm not asking - why is Microsoft supporting C++. What I'm saying is - they seem to be pushing a new fad with this "going native" stuff - and I don't see any rationale behind it. Why actively push for C++ over .NET, .NET doesn't seem to be getting nearly as much attention recently (I could be wrong tough) and let's face it C++ isn't exactly something that needs marketing to get noticed and picked up and it doesn't even seem to be MS strong point in the market.
batista 15y ago
Off topic - but I got to ask - what's up with Microsoft pushing C++ ? They were pushing .NET then all the sudden it's back to C++ .NET is for corporate stuff mostly. i.e in-company apps, corporate web apps and the like. They never touted .NET as a replacement for C++ for actual Windows apps and they never rewrote their apps (Office, etc) in .NET managed C#. In that area, .NET has been doing well. They don't propose people start using C++ for that, just as .NET was never meant for Desktop application development (and only niche apps use it, like only niche apps use Java for the desktop --Azureus etc). As for the recent focus on C++, well C++ is having a major new version. And it was always their major weapon for application development (of which there are millions out there for Windows, from major stuff like Photoshop to the lamest shareware crap). So, .NET/C++: orthogonal. They could have picked up Mono after Novell, fund it separately (to avoid legal risks) and establish .NET as a truly cross-platform solution. What sense would that make? So they give their customers a free and open source way to move away from Windows and run their .NET stuff in a Unix stack?
- moonchrome 15y ago
  >So they give their customers a free and open source way to move away from Windows and run their .NET stuff in a Unix stack? This is 2012, you don't win by trying to lock in your customers - because people have been burned more than a few times by that business model and there are plenty of alternatives (eg. Java, now with JavaFX 2/3 might make a decent push on the client side, especially if they implement it for iOS/Android).
- fauigerzigerk 15y ago
  .NET is for corporate stuff mostly. i.e in-company apps, corporate web apps and the like. They never touted .NET as a replacement for C++ for actual Windows apps I don't agree with that. MFC was used for lots of corporate desktop applications and some if not most of those are being replaced by Windows Forms and WPF apps. Replacing C++ MFC apps with .NET is exactly what Microsoft told Windows developers to do in the past 10 years and that's what they did. http://www.indeed.com/jobtrends?q=MFC%2C+WPF%2C+winforms&l= http://www.indeed.com/jobtrends?q=MFC%2C+WPF%2C+winforms&#38...
  - 15y ago
j_s 15y ago
Conspiracy theorists blame internal politics causing technology decisions to be made based on how it impacts the careers of those in charge. http://stackoverflow.com/a/7524710 http://stackoverflow.com/a/7524710

krig 15y ago

Hasn't Microsoft been switching technology completely all the time? They do seem incredibly fickle. Does anyone remember Avalon/WPF?

rvkennedy 15y ago
Or, indeed, Silverlight. But big companies' big technology plays sometimes work, and sometimes don't. Sometimes you get lucky (like the people who never bothered to learn .NET). But I don't think that posting this video represents a major signifier of MS' current technology stance.
rrreese 15y ago
WPF is used extensively for LOB apps in enterprise. It seems to have completely replaced windows forms except for legacy applications.

philbo 15y ago

I'm not sure that them pushing C++ equates to a switch away from .NET and managed code. What I take from it is that they're keen to foster a rich development eco-system on their platforms and they think that programming language diversity is an important part of this. As I write this, I realise there is a compelling counter-argument in Apple and Objective-C. So maybe not, I don't know.

T-zex 15y ago
Apple is not in enterprise market, not so many people write LOB apps with Objective-C.

radicalbyte 15y ago

Erm, Microsoft are massive. They have lots of customers who have vastly differing needs which generally don't compete with each other. There are a LOT of Windows applications built on C++. Most games and most intensive applications are C++ based. Their corporate business customers generally use either C# or VB.Net with a large number still supporting legacy applications in Visual Basic. Their web customers naturally use javascript/css/html for client-side and one of the managed languages server-side. So it's not surprising to see them pushing three big languages for their big (and very different) markets. Microsoft have a pretty good record of supporting their own languages. Visual Basic is still in use today dispite it being terrible. C# is very well supported, and they have a pretty good C++ compiler and toolchain. IronPython, IronRuby, J# etc were all Microsoft's attempts to "play with the cool kids", clones/forks of existing standards. All died the inevitable death when the next fad came along (see F#).

moonchrome 15y ago
>Most games and most intensive applications are C++ based. That's what I'm trying to say. .NET is finally in the place where it's good enough for games (except AAA titles), unlike JVM it supports value types and has true generics that can generate proper collections for them (big deal for games where a lot of the data is in small tuples of floats) and lot's of "unsafe" stuff where you get direct memory access. Mono guys even developed AOT compiler with LLVM optimizer and allowed you to drop things such as runtime bounds checking - you'd probably get to 10% of C++ code, the only remaining problem being non-deterministic GC pauses (can be worked around). Also I don't know why "intensive" applications can't be written on .NET with maybe a few drops to native C when needed. If it's scientific/cluster computing/number crunching then - I'm speculating - but I doesn't sound like you want to be running Windows anyway and Microsoft doesn't ship their C++ tools for other platforms so that doesn't sound reasonable. But we're arguing different points here. I'm not asking - why is Microsoft supporting C++. What I'm saying is - they seem to be pushing a new fad with this "going native" stuff - and I don't see any rationale behind it. Why actively push for C++ over .NET, .NET doesn't seem to be getting nearly as much attention recently (I could be wrong tough) and let's face it C++ isn't exactly something that needs marketing to get noticed and picked up and it doesn't even seem to be MS strong point in the market.

batista 15y ago

Off topic - but I got to ask - what's up with Microsoft pushing C++ ? They were pushing .NET then all the sudden it's back to C++ .NET is for corporate stuff mostly. i.e in-company apps, corporate web apps and the like. They never touted .NET as a replacement for C++ for actual Windows apps and they never rewrote their apps (Office, etc) in .NET managed C#. In that area, .NET has been doing well. They don't propose people start using C++ for that, just as .NET was never meant for Desktop application development (and only niche apps use it, like only niche apps use Java for the desktop --Azureus etc). As for the recent focus on C++, well C++ is having a major new version. And it was always their major weapon for application development (of which there are millions out there for Windows, from major stuff like Photoshop to the lamest shareware crap). So, .NET/C++: orthogonal. They could have picked up Mono after Novell, fund it separately (to avoid legal risks) and establish .NET as a truly cross-platform solution. What sense would that make? So they give their customers a free and open source way to move away from Windows and run their .NET stuff in a Unix stack?

moonchrome 15y ago
>So they give their customers a free and open source way to move away from Windows and run their .NET stuff in a Unix stack? This is 2012, you don't win by trying to lock in your customers - because people have been burned more than a few times by that business model and there are plenty of alternatives (eg. Java, now with JavaFX 2/3 might make a decent push on the client side, especially if they implement it for iOS/Android).
fauigerzigerk 15y ago
.NET is for corporate stuff mostly. i.e in-company apps, corporate web apps and the like. They never touted .NET as a replacement for C++ for actual Windows apps I don't agree with that. MFC was used for lots of corporate desktop applications and some if not most of those are being replaced by Windows Forms and WPF apps. Replacing C++ MFC apps with .NET is exactly what Microsoft told Windows developers to do in the past 10 years and that's what they did. http://www.indeed.com/jobtrends?q=MFC%2C+WPF%2C+winforms&l= http://www.indeed.com/jobtrends?q=MFC%2C+WPF%2C+winforms&#38...
- 15y ago

j_s 15y ago

Conspiracy theorists blame internal politics causing technology decisions to be made based on how it impacts the careers of those in charge. http://stackoverflow.com/a/7524710 http://stackoverflow.com/a/7524710