Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!clyde.concordia.ca!uunet!mcsun!hp4nl!media01!pkr
From: pkr@media01.UUCP (Peter Kriens)
Newsgroups: comp.windows.ms
Subject: Re: Windows programming in C
Message-ID: <1270@media01.UUCP>
Date: 29 Jun 90 08:55:23 GMT
References: <118500024@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu> <41900010@sunb3> <1990Jun27.163921.2125@chinet.chi.il.us>
Reply-To: pkr@media01.UUCP (Peter Kriens)
Organization: Mediasystemen, Netherlands
Lines: 41

I don't think the price of the SDK is the real problem. The basic
problem is that you need something like the SDK and, not to forget
an expensive and unpleasant compiler like Microsoft C. If you look
at the Mac & X-windows and many other windowing extensions, it seems
possible to build a window system based on a run time interface.

On the Mac it is the definition of the unused 68000 op-codes and in 
X-window it is Xlib. Because this relatively simple interface to a complex
system it is possible to pick your choice in development tools. In
microsoft windows you need a special compiler, a special linker and the
SDK. All these products have been specialized for windows.

What I would have liked, or like is a public domain specification of
how to talk to a library and then use any commercial compiler
in the market. In that case I wouldn't have the problem of paying
a couple of hundred dollars for a SDK that offers me example code
and utilities. And Microsoft could always bring out books to make
money from.

The biggest problem seems to be that Microsoft allowed the windows
developers to specialize the linker and the compiler. 

Another big drawback of windows that we have found it extremely
difficult to develop code for windows that is portable across
multiple platforms because of the problems associated with memory
management. All the code I have tried to write for ms-windows end
up awfully bound to windows. Especially the moving segments make it
very difficult to write code. A fact that is recognized by Microsoft
from the fact that all the examples are compiled in small model (The
"preferred" model [try writing a more usefull program than a clock 
in 64K!]).

From our application side I would love to use windows because of
the portability and choice in hardware. But we had so many problems 
in fighting the compiler and the memory management that we actually
gave up. This in contrast with the Macintosh where you do not have to
worry about all the problems associated with windows.

Conclusion: I like the look of Windows 3.0 but the development 
process Microsoft forces you to use is so awfull that I am waiting for
Broland or someone else to make it workable for larger projects.