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[teiresias]

OK, so I'm having to program some rudimentary windows programs. This will need to involve possibly doing a custom USB device driver (probably not though), a program that talks over the USB bus, does some DSP work, and possibly has a simple graphical display for like a Fourier transform or something.

I know C++, for the most part, nothing too complicated, as I'm mainly an embedded systems designer and do mainly firmware coding and microcontroller programming, so I don't have a ton of experience doing alot of the more esoteric OO coding (at least not recently) that is generally par for the course in Windows apparently).

In any case, does the VC++.NET let you quickly get a windows GUI up and running - any better than VC++6.0? I have 6.0 and never found it all that helpful doing Win32API stuff or Windows GUIs - the Visual Basic GUI maker was much easier to use - but it is Visual Basic after all, hehe. I'm not even certain if for my application I should be doing C++ or maybe Java would be better - but I know C++ and not Java so you know.

Of course I'm also considering doing this via Labview if I can find it if they support a USB driver interface.

Anyway, what do coders that do Windows coding think of the .NET versions of the Visual stuff? Would it be better to just go ahead and get Studio .NET that includes everything?

 

[maharg]

It's just a newer version, nothing really amazing added to it. The IDE is bulkier and the C++ compiler was improved to an insane degree as far as compliance and quality of code output, but other than that it's just Visual C++ 7.0 (for 2k2, 7.1 for 2k3)

 

[Lardbutt]

Well, I don't know any Windows programmers who are NOT using Visual Studio .NET....

It's pretty much the de facto standard in Windows development.

 

[fart]

there are a bunch of new libraries and a language extension (ie, all the .NET stuff) that let you do WSIWYG GUI design (a la vis basic) in a garbage collected and remarkably java-like C++ environ. you might want to check that out.

i didn't even know you could get vc++ separately. they pretty much give studio.NET out to students. overall it's a little bloated but not terrible.

(vc++ 7.0 had the gc extensions and .NET forms?)

 

[Shompola]

You can if you want do the graphics user interface in java and the rest in C++. I have done that and it worked just fine.. C/C++ and Java dont really have any problems talking to each other if you setup listening ports.

 

[jgkspsx]

As far as the non-realtime stuff goes, the .NET framework is excellent. Intellisense coupled with the framework libraries makes for the easiest development process I've used.

It's possible to do realtime stuff by compiling code segments to "unmanaged" native executable code rather than to the Microsoft Intermediate Language, which is what "managed" .NET assemblies compile to by default.

I may be slightly biased, but Java is not really a stable platform for Windows GUIs.

fart: Visual C++.NET is Visual C++ 7. Visual C++ 6 was the previous version.

 

[fart]

fart: Visual C++.NET is Visual C++ 7. Visual C++ 6 was the previous version.

ah, got it.

 

[PhatSaqs]

I thought Visuall C++ .Net was C# (Sharp) or is that a different lang.?

 

[sefskillz]

I thought Visuall C++ .Net was C# (Sharp) or is that a different lang.?

No, C# is a different language.

Does Visual C++.net use the CRL?

 

[maharg]

No, C# is a different language.

Does Visual C++.net use the CRL?

If you use Managed C++ it does. That's not the default, though, and unless you know what you're doing and have a good reason to do so it's not a very good idea.

 

[teiresias]

Sorry to bump this, but I have a question - what exactly is included with Visual Studio .NET as opposed to buying the separate language packages like Visual Basic .NET or Visual C++ .NET? Does studio include all of them? That seems a little odd that Visual Studio would include all of them but doesn't really cost much more than the single language versions (at least regarding pricing of the Academic versions anyway).

 

[maharg]

That's correct, studio includes all of them. The individual language editions have long since become not really worth it. And it's probably on purpose.