Re: [Boost-users] Using boost compiled with VC++ 8.0 on VC++ 6.0

Bronek Kozicki wrote:

Kenneth Porter wrote:

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On Monday, August 14, 2006 3:06 PM -0700 Michael Nicolella wrote:

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I believe he said it doesn't include some functionality he needs... Express lacks the GUI class libraries such as MFC.

and this is one of its best points. MFC is poorly designed legacy library that shouldn't be used for any new development.

I do not think the OP was talking about new development. I totally agree with you and as a programmer I would not have used MFC even ten years ago given that Borland's VCL and C++ Builder were always so much better then. Unfortunately the C++ Windows programming world felt otherwise and their is a ton of legacy code in Windows using C++/MFC. This was made worse by the fact that for the first four years of .net development the C++ implementation of .net was "mysteriously" broken ( see the loader lock bug ), which encouraged C++ .net programmers to continue to use MFC in Visual Studio 2002 and 2003 or switch to C#, the latter no doubt being MS's choice which may explain why C++ .net programming just "happened" to be broken. Given that VC++ 6.0 is such a poorly compliant compiler, the only real choice for a VC++ 6.0 user using Boost libraries with MFC is either to use those libraries which still work with VC++ 6.0, pay MS the $200 or so upgrade dollars and get the standard edition of Visual Studio 2005 which has MFC, or learn C++/CLI and use the free edition VC2005 Express and transform an MFC program to C++/CLI ( no mean task ). I have excluded getting Borland's latest C++ Builder offering since the C++ compliance of Borland for almost a half decade of doing nothing in their C++ compiler is pretty bad also, switching from MFC to the VCL is only a little less hard than switching from MFC to C++/CLI forms, and the price of the latest Borland C++ offering is even greater than the upgrade from VC++ 6 to VS2005. If I were the OP I would pay MS their $200 or so upgrade price ( which is what I personally did for VS2005 largely to do C++/CLI .net programming ), and be done with programming with VC++ 6 forever. Alternatively as you suggested he can use C++/CLI Windows Forms or just basic Win32 programming ( yuck ! ) with VC2005 express, but the former is much work if he would be transforming an MFC legacy application and the latter is tiresome. In either case he would be able to use Boost with few problems, as VC8 is an immensely better C++ compliant compiler than VC6.