Mike Marchywka wrote:

Have you considered java for the gui? You can get

platform-look-and-feel etc but if your customers absolutely need it

to look like Windoze, well... I wouldn't rec it for performance but

if you need a gui it

is safe and has a lot stuff and has a native interface. It

is also a bit more portable than MFC LOL.

I was always turned off by java.  My perception was that

as an interpreted language it was going to be slower than C++.

Why learn yet another language just to go slower.

The clincher was that I got a contract to take over a project

that had missed its delivery target and the software wasn't

even close.  The hard ware was all done and tested so there

was huge financial pressure to deliver the machine.

(usually I only get a job when every other

alternative has been exhausted).  The previous programmers

had taken this approach.  It was very, very slow. This ratified

my prejudice.  I took the job with the understanding I was to

produce a working prototype in 30 days.  I keep the C++

part and added on a gui with mfc.  Made the deadline

with a couple of days to spare.

And, I have to admit I'm still ticked off that the utiliy app

that came with my wireless card has to be killed or, even

while minimized, it uses up all the GDI objects in a few hours and

crashes my machine. If you need to include some production code as an

"Afterthought" java avoids really bad things like memory leaks etc...

The hassles with things like memory leaks, threading races, etc

with this application were what led me to boost in the first place.

That's how I got here.  Currently I prefer to use boost for the "guts"

and MFC for the "GUI viewer/manuiplator".  But they don't always

play nice together.  This my core complaint with MFC.  It's too

coupled so you endup sucking in a lot of stuff you don't want.

When I look at wxWidgets, QT, etc.  I see they have classes

for strings, multithreading, etc.  This gives me pause as it would

seem that the GUI layer might be coupled to other parts of

the library which I would prefer to use boost for.

I've also been looking at WTL (microsoft Windows Template

Library) which looks like a thin templatized layer over Win32.

I'm sort of limited in that I need a system which "just works"

rather "can be made to work".