Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!mcsun!unido!rwthinf!slcdec!hippo!f1.n6000.z2.fidonet.org!p1.f36.n245.z2.fidonet.org!Thomas_Hornschuh
From: Thomas_Hornschuh@p1.f36.n245.z2.fidonet.org (Thomas Hornschuh)
Newsgroups: comp.windows.ms.programmer
Subject: Re: Higer-level Windows programming
Message-ID: <217247341@p1.f36.n245.z2.fidonet.org>
Date: 6 May 91 14:37:38 GMT
Reply-To: Thomas_Hornschuh%p1.f36.n245.z2@hippo.dfv.rwth-aachen.de (Thomas Hornschuh)
Organization: SoftStream 2, Dortmund (FRG)
Lines: 33
Comment-To: Bryan_S._So@f1.n6000.z2.fidonet.org (Bryan S. So)

BS> somebody recommend which products are useful/not useful... etc?
BS> 
BS> I have currently heard of Toolbook (Asymmetrix), Actors (Whitewater),
BS> Plus (Spinnaker) and C++/Views (CNS).
BS> 
BS> The requirements should be for fast prototyping, but must be
BS> powerful enough for general application programming.  I don't
BS> mind learning a new OO language.  I don't mind programming in
BS> C++ as long as there are enough class for fast prototyping.

I think you has listed four quite different tools with different purposes. I 
have a litlle expierence with Actor and much expierence with C++/Views. Actor 
is very powerfull and encapsulates nearly all windows API-calls. Sometimes 
these encapsulation has a fairly low level, especially the Dialog-Handling 
functions. The main disadvantage of Actor is the slowness. 

C++/Views on the other hand is an partially successfull approach to combine a 
Compiler language with the incremental programming style of a pure OOP language 
like Smalltalk. The C++/Views browser let you write C++-Code in a quite 
comfortable manner and generates make- and other control-files. For debugging 
purposes you must use Tools like CodeView. In addition to C++/Views you must at 
least buy a C++-Compiler (I prefer Zortech, Borland is also supported). 
The smalltalk like Data-Classes (Container, Dictionary, Set, Collection, ...) 
supports rapid application Development, but C++ is more difficult to use than 
Smalltalk or Actor.
The Windows-Inteface classes have some constraints and cover the windows-API 
only partially. 
Both, library and browser have some bugs.

The advantage of Views is, that (together with a compiler) it generates fast 
and native code Windows executables and you can access all Windows-API 
functions that are not covered by the C++/Views layer directly.