What's better to use, MFC or the Win API?

[Wynd]

And, are there any good tutorials for either (besides winprog.org)? I have been looking, but haven't found any good ones.

[HarryW]

Which is better depends on what you're doing. MFC makes C++ a bit like VB in that a lot of the Windows stuff is simplified, and you need runtimes to make it work. This is good if you are trying to do rapid development of a fairly standard Windows app, but it's a bit crude and chunky.

Windows API can do all the stuff MFC can, just in a way that's a little more complicated. With Win32 API you have to write more code yourself, but at the end your code will be more efficient and you'll have less compiled code to your project since it doesn't need runtimes.

I think it's probably a good idea to learn API stuff first as it gives a better understanding of the way in which Windows programs work.

[parksie]

www.cprogramming.com
http://cplus.about.com

I recomend you read the entire tutorial at winprog.org, and download the platform SDK......

[sail3005]

2 questions,

1) since we are talking about runtimes, WHY doesn't microsoft include the VB runtimes with windows already? and are the MFC runtimes included already? and if not then why not?

2) Say you wrote a beta of an application using MFC, and then wanted to convert a later version to API, how hard would that be? Just generally. Would you have to rewrite the entire thing?

[parksie]

1) A large proportion of it comes with the latest versions of Internet Explorer, so by definition 98SE and above should support VB6. You can definitely drop msvbvm60.dll from the list, which should save a bit.

2) Yeah -- it's pretty much a rewrite job. No real way around it, I'm afraid.

[sail3005]

too bad you would have to rewrite everything

[parksie]

Well...not everything

The logic would remain intact, but your application's design may change significantly. Plus you'd have to change CString to string and all the associated containers to their STL equivalents...bit of a nightmare really. Although if it's written in MFC...keep it in MFC -- it would be a lot easier.

[sail3005]

yeah, i guess before you plan a project you should spend some time thinking about what is best, and then never convert it.

like the saying "If it's not broken, then don't fix it!"

anyway, thanks for all the info

[Wynd]

Ok, thank you all for the information. The reason I asked for another tutorial was because i have already read the one at winprog.org and i was looking for a one with more information.