Microsoft abandons the C language

[jacob navia]

Le 24/08/12 09:22, Leo Havmøller a écrit :

The real question is: Why would you want to develop a metro style
application at all?

Leo Havmøller.

Because is the interface that Microsoft will maintain, i.e. will develop
further.

The old interface will be maintained for some years but it will no
longer be supported, and will decay slowly as new features are added to
"metro style" applications but not to the older interface paradigm.

By the way I do not want to develop any phone application but desktop
applications. If the SDK doesn't have any C interface you are
forced to develop in one of the proposed languages:

o Visual Basic
o Java script
o Managed C++
o C#

 

[Ansel]

Le 24/08/12 09:22, Leo Havmøller a écrit :
Because is the interface that Microsoft will maintain, i.e. will
develop further.

The old interface will be maintained for some years but it will no
longer be supported, and will decay slowly as new features are added
to "metro style" applications but not to the older interface paradigm.

You mean that after 25+ years of the desktop GUI paradigm, Metro will
obsolete it? Why do you make such wild assertions?

By the way I do not want to develop any phone application but desktop
applications. If the SDK doesn't have any C interface you are
forced to develop in one of the proposed languages:

o Visual Basic
o Java script
o Managed C++
o C#

What self-respecting C programmer uses .Net or WinRT instead of programming
to the Win32 API (or better, his own wrapper around it)??

 

[Ansel]

;-( :-(

I write console applications all the time to try things out! Little
utilities launched from the desktop etc.

You can still write console apps in Win8.

no Win32 interface at all? Maybe I will have to switch to Linux after
all.

Win32 is still there, but just a subset of it is callable from Metro apps.

I really don't see the hullabuloo about Metro apps. Some
applications/platforms fit the model, others don't. I haven't investigated
it much, but Metro seems to be a smart phone GUI put on the desktop, which
sounds like a very dumb idea. On a phone, or tablet maybe, but on a desktop?
Surely that showing of that coffee table interface where one could move
stuff around with their hands because the surface was a touch screen has
something to do with this (read, Bill Gate's ego). MS seems to be just a
bunch of propeller heads after the Win 8 UI fiasco.

But then again, the first thing I do after installing the latest and
"greatest" version of Windows and after playing around with the "new and
improved" GUI for a bit, is go looking for the same classic GUI I've been
using since Win 95, so it may be just me. Heck, maybe y'all have abandoned
your desktops for your smartphone ages ago, or don't even know what one of
those desktop (computer) things is! I don't even have a smartphone. The last
thing I want when I'm away from my computer, is to be away WITH another
computer!

I got off the MS bandwagon of "new-and-improved" technologies early. The
first incling I had of their strategy is when they came out with DDE and
then everything in their arsenal had to have 'DDE' in the name. Then it was
OLE. COM. MFC, .Net, WinRT, Metro... it never ends. I feel very lucky that I
haven't spent much time on learning MS-proprietary technologies.

 

[Ansel]

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/apps/hh464945(v=VS.85).aspx

 

[Ansel]

I really don't see the hullabuloo about Metro apps. Some
applications/platforms fit the model, others don't. I haven't
investigated it much, but Metro seems to be a smart phone GUI put on
the desktop, which sounds like a very dumb idea. On a phone, or
tablet maybe, but on a desktop?

Further, if one has an operating system product line, and they have a
paradigm they call "deskop apps" and another called "Metro-style apps",
shouldn't users conclude that "desktop apps" are for desktop computers and
that "Metro-style" apps are for some other type of computer and that an OS
that presents itself in "Metro-style" is not an OS meant for a desktop
computer? Does MS employ any analysts? If so, they should try using
consultants instead!

 

[Daniel Weber]

Am 24.08.2012 09:51, schrieb jacob navia:

1) I downloaded Visual studio Pro, (not express), and visual studio
has nothing to do with the new SDK as you (may) know. I am quoting
from the official SDK DOCUMENTATION, not from any visual studio
documentation.

And since die SDK documentation never had todo with such things as
chdir, chdir, chdrive, wchdir, ... (those are in the Visual C++ Runtime
Library, not in the SDK) you maybe should also check the Visual Studio
documentation. ;-)

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bf7fwze1.aspx

_chdir is OF COURSE available with Visual Studio 2012 for Windows 8
desktop applications (!= metro apps).

2) The business customers will program in Java/Visual Basic, or managed
C++, and they will be able to use the system apparently. Since there
is no C interface you can't use C for any task interfacing with the
OS.

There IS a C interface for desktop applications, you will be able to use
the console, use pipes as you have been before. The interface for
desktop application IS NOT REMOVED. Windows needs this interface for its
system services, Windows Server needs this interface for IIS, Exchange,
SQL Server, etc.

Bye,
Daniel

 

[jacob navia]

Le 24/08/12 13:30, Daniel Weber a écrit :

There IS a C interface for desktop applications, you will be able to use
the console, use pipes as you have been before. The interface for
desktop application IS NOT REMOVED. Windows needs this interface for its
system services, Windows Server needs this interface for IIS, Exchange,
SQL Server, etc.

As I said to several people, the interface is still supported, Windows
95 could still run MSDOS applications, but all those applications used
an obsolete interface that would never be updated again.

Microsoft hasn't updated the SDK for Win32 since around 5 years. If that
doesn't tell you something, I do not know what would.

 

[Les Cargill]

Further, if one has an operating system product line, and they have a
paradigm they call "deskop apps" and another called "Metro-style apps",
shouldn't users conclude that "desktop apps" are for desktop computers and
that "Metro-style" apps are for some other type of computer and that an OS
that presents itself in "Metro-style" is not an OS meant for a desktop
computer? Does MS employ any analysts? If so, they should try using
consultants instead!

Ya think? Nail, meet head.

 

[Daniel Weber]

Am 24.08.2012 13:32, schrieb jacob navia:

As I said to several people, the interface is still supported, Windows
95 could still run MSDOS applications, but all those applications used
an obsolete interface that would never be updated again.

You can't compare MS-DOS to the Win-API. Windows 8 is built on the
Win-API, so the system needs it. MS SQL Server needs it, Exchange needs
it, IIS needs, ... Microsoft makes money with those products so they
will keep the support in their OS.

Microsoft hasn't updated the SDK for Win32 since around 5 years.

The lastest "release quality" SDK (version 7.1) has been released
2010-05-21, thats not 5 years ago.

Bye,
Daniel

 

[BGB]

The server and system side of things isn't going Metro any time soon.
As for C applications in Metro, well, writing iOS apps in anything
other than Objective-C is a right pain too. Or Android apps in
something other than Java (yes, it's possible in all of these cases,
but certainly not the easiest choice).

But I do have more than a few mixed feeling about the whole Metro
thing. On the one hand, the old Windows style interface simply does
not work well on mobile devices, so if they're going to have to make a
break, make it a big one, since the opportunities to do that happen so
rarely. On the other hand, it's a freaking PITA for developers with
existing applications...

FWIW, Apple is no joy to work with either.

AFAIK, MS was originally going to make the Windows 8 development tools
be Metro-only, but from what I heard they backed down due mostly to
severe developer backlash.

as-is, I have been seeing if ever MS would do something so incredibly
stupid as to sway the cost/benefit tradeoffs generally in favor of
Linux, but this hasn't happened yet, as most of their more extreme(-ly
bad) ideas have tended to go over poorly and they have backed off.


will see about the future though...

 

[jacob navia]

Le 24/08/12 18:35, BGB a écrit :

AFAIK, MS was originally going to make the Windows 8 development tools
be Metro-only, but from what I heard they backed down due mostly to
severe developer backlash.

You understand that the transition from windows 16 bits to windows 32 in
1995 was a fairly easy porting job. All the calls and structure of
windows remained the same, the languages remained the same, and the
overall design of the API remained the same.

We face now a complete rewrite of everything Win32 programmers have
developed over those 15 years. Everything: all the code, resources
design application design everything. You start from scratch.

Hi Guys!

Here is Microsoft. You have trusted us with your code, well... bad luck.
Just start again. Learn our new proprietary technology XYZ, the best
that you have ever know. All your code is now "legacy", and you can
forget it: there is no need for that since XYZ is the best of the best.

Some people think that they will only be forced to rewrite the UI in
Metro but can keep the rest. Maybe, but since pipes are banned, and
Metro applications can start an application or a new thread how are they
going to communicate with the rest of the application?

Of course: by writing files!



But maybe there will be a huge market for people that do not want
Metro and want to go on using Win32...

 

[BGB]

Le 24/08/12 18:35, BGB a écrit :

You understand that the transition from windows 16 bits to windows 32 in
1995 was a fairly easy porting job. All the calls and structure of
windows remained the same, the languages remained the same, and the
overall design of the API remained the same.

We face now a complete rewrite of everything Win32 programmers have
developed over those 15 years. Everything: all the code, resources
design application design everything. You start from scratch.

Hi Guys!

Here is Microsoft. You have trusted us with your code, well... bad luck.
Just start again. Learn our new proprietary technology XYZ, the best
that you have ever know. All your code is now "legacy", and you can
forget it: there is no need for that since XYZ is the best of the best.

Some people think that they will only be forced to rewrite the UI in
Metro but can keep the rest. Maybe, but since pipes are banned, and
Metro applications can start an application or a new thread how are they
going to communicate with the rest of the application?

Of course: by writing files!



But maybe there will be a huge market for people that do not want
Metro and want to go on using Win32...

well, there *was* a reason for the backlash...


otherwise, besides pipes, loopback sockets would probably still be
around, and people can more-or-less fake pipes via sockets.

 

[Ansel]

AFAIK, MS was originally going to make the Windows 8 development tools
be Metro-only, but from what I heard they backed down due mostly to
severe developer backlash.

That is ludicrous to think that. Think about it a minute. Do you really
think that MS would throw away everything they ever did up until now because
of a touch UI? C'mon. Really now, c'mon. There was some rumor about the free
versions of the tools being Metro-only, but we'll never know what was
planned because now they are making the free tools for desktop development
available. Has this group all taken sensationalism drugs or what?

 

[Ansel]

We face now a complete rewrite of everything Win32 programmers have
developed over those 15 years. Everything: all the code, resources
design application design everything. You start from scratch.

Hi Guys!

Here is Microsoft. You have trusted us with your code, well... bad
luck. Just start again. Learn our new proprietary technology XYZ, the
best that you have ever know. All your code is now "legacy", and you
can forget it: there is no need for that since XYZ is the best of the
best.
Some people think that they will only be forced to rewrite the UI in
Metro but can keep the rest. Maybe, but since pipes are banned, and
Metro applications can start an application or a new thread how are
they going to communicate with the rest of the application?

Of course: by writing files!



But maybe there will be a huge market for people that do not want
Metro and want to go on using Win32...

More wild flailing from you.

 

[Rui Maciel]

You seem to be flailing wildly for no apparent reason.

It appears that the changes mentioned by Jacob Navia have the nasty
consequence of making it impossible to use standard C and C++ to develop
apps for Windows 8. This being true, this reason might not be apparent but
it certainly has serious implications, more than enough to justify some
amount of wild faliling.


Rui Maciel

 

[Rui Maciel]

The real question is: Why would you want to develop a metro style
application at all?

If a client asks for a metro style application then it is in your best
interests to develop a metro style application. If not, it might just be
enough to put you out of business.


Rui Maciel

 

[Malcolm McLean]

בת×ריך ×™×•× ×©×‘×ª,25 ב×וגוסט 2012 10:16:17 UTC+1, מ×ת Rui Maciel:

Ansel wrote:

It appears that the changes mentioned by Jacob Navia have the nasty
consequence of making it impossible to use standard C and C++ to develop
apps for Windows 8. This being true, this reason might not be apparent but
it certainly has serious implications, more than enough to justify some
amount of wild faliling.

I'm beginning to come to the the position that C is right for re-usable
components, whilst the UI should be strung together in some high-level
language. For instance I had to get the largest object in a binary image
under Matlab. You can do it by calling the connect components routine,
querying the components, and returning the largest one. But it's a lot faster
to use the floodfill method. But this requires lots of looping over pixels,
which Matlab isn't good at. By writing the function in C and giving it a mex
interface, I was able to speed things up by a factor of about ten.

But this requires a C interface.

 

[Rui Maciel]

I'm beginning to come to the the position that C is right for re-usable
components, whilst the UI should be strung together in some high-level
language.

<snip example/>

You have a point, and it certainly sounds like the best option available.

Nevertheless, it is in the world's best interests to let people make that
decision by themselves based on technical merit, instead of simply being
force-fed a specific approach while shutting down any alternative.


Rui Maciel

 

[Adrian Ratnapala]

to use the floodfill method. But this requires lots of looping over pixels,
which Matlab isn't good at. By writing the function in C and giving it a mex
interface, I was able to speed things up by a factor of about ten.

This is verging on heresy. Everyone who has never rewritten a MATLAB program in C or Fortran knows; MATLAB is a just as fast as those languages. Faster even! Your ten times improvement is just proof that you haven't heard of vectors, obviously you are a newbie programmer.

(In fact I am surprised the factor is only ten).

 

[88888 Dihedral]

jacob naviaæ–¼ 2012å¹´8月24日星期五UTC+8下åˆ3時18分52秒寫é“：

Le 24/08/12 09:06, Don't make my brown eyes China Blue a �crit :









Look, I develop in a Mac (0S X 10.8) and you can OF COURSE develop GUI

applications that use the full Unix/Mac libraries. Of course you have to

sandbox them to be able to put them into an iPhone but for the Mac

Desktop there are no such restrictions.



That is the problem here. Microsoft doesn't make the distinction between

a sandboxed application and a desktop application apparently and the

whole Metro sdk is designed for a subset of languages all

exclusively running in a Microsoft platform: Managed C++, C#, Java

script, and all .net languages.



C doesn't fit there.



This is the end of a development that was announced with the refusal to

support C99 at all, the marking of the whole C library as obsolete by

Visual Studio, and other developments: the last SDK released was several

years ago, all develoment of the C interfaces stopped, etc.

Are you sure that you don't have to write some assembly code
embeded in C?

I won't do that in C++.