John Torjo wrote:
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Borland's C++ Builder was very nice, but of course it wasn't standard C++.
True.
VC++ Managed C++ .NET is very nice but it is even further away from standard C++. In neither do you have to write hundreds of lines of code to do any GUI programming of significance. In order to have a really top-rate C++ GUI library I believe one needs reflection in C++ in order to do the sort of
Not true. It would be great if you had reflection, but it's not a necessity.
I'll show you (in about 3-4 months) that you don't need reflection to set GUI properties at design time. It'll be just like VB, but only better ;)
I am very interested in this and would like very much to see how you will do this at design time. In particular I am interested in how event handlers can be set at design time. All without C++ reflection of course and using strictly the C++ standard, since you are confident that this can be done. My view of event handlers is that any "component" ( see below ) within such a system should be capable of handling any event generated by any other component; which is true of both C++ Builder and Managed C++/.NET.
easy RAD programming which C++ Builder and Managed C++ .NET provide. Needless to say, both use extensions to C++ to do reflection. This is not a knock on any of the GUI libraries mentioned, but after using C++ Builder and Managed C++ .NET, even despite their non-C++-isms, most C++ GUI libraries are very primitive by contrast.
I donot understand what you mean by the last sentence.
In the sense that one has to do work at run-time when it could be done at design time. Please notice I said 'most', not all. If you, or anyone else, could come up with a RAD C++ GUI development environment which works with 98%+ conforming C++ compilers ( Como, gcc, VC++ 7.1, Intel etc. ) and enables one to easily set properties and events at design time, ala C++ Builder and Managed C++/.NET, I would be very interested in it and would contribute to it any way that I can if I liked the design. By GUI I also means the sort of components ( properties and events along with traditional C++ method-based programming ) which are supported by C++ Builder and Managed C++. I think non-visual components are also very important and should be available for design time configuration just as much as visual components in such a GUI environment.