Comments

3 hours ago, Charles wrote

*C++/CX has been deemed the most user-friendly approach to solving this problem. Feel free to prove us wrong.

C

@Charles didn't we prove you  wrong (to MS, mr sutter and you personally) by giving a number of differently approached counter examples written in pure ISO that would achieve exactly the same goal as C++/CX and actually would conform to ISO C++?

Are we having/had the same discussion here?

And as for mr sutter and his attitude:

 "hey, this thread has half the word count of exceptional c++! I'm not gonna read it!" - pathetic

You also are saying:

COM is a foreign object model to C++).

Yes, but in order to consume it you use C++ syntax and you have C++ semantics. This is NOT true for C++/Cx - and that's the whole point, I and others were trying to make but apparently this genius mr sutter couldn't neither grasp it nor explain why staying within ISO C++ would be not possible and he and his team had to come up with CX. WOW!

The only person here from MS who has to be given fair play star is Jim Springfield. I and others may disagree with him but at least he didn't try to pull wool over our eyes, on the contrary to mr sutter and Jim at least read this tread and listened to what we want/have to say.

As for over all mr sutter's appearance here - WOW!

@dbu: Unfortunately must disagree with you. People will buy it, people will use it. Just because you, I and some other few people didn't get the "WinRT thing" it doesn't mean anything and MS knows about it. They will push with stubbornity of a donkey every new technology however badly designed. It doesn't matter - they can afford it.

@Glen, I certainly am not going to even touch WinRT. As've been proven here on this thread CX is a total unnecessary, foreing to C++ without legitimate right to exist.

But Glen, this will not bother MS. We are not their target customers - .NET crowd is. They will jump on CX. We (C++ guys) were just an extra - They (MS) speculated along this lines: "if it happens (that C++ guys will want to use it) that's fine, if not we (MS) can live without them quite happily."

They didn't care about us in the past and they will not in neither present nor future.

Why do you think this syntax is so .NET-ish? To accomodate C++ folks? Buhaha! That's so obvious - .NET crowd is what matters for MS not we.

C++ rules and rocks!

Forever!

I just wonder if this "syntax" would/could 've been used in order to stay with ISO C++

class X

{

REFCLASS;//this is a macro, other tool may be needed but other than that nothing changes

};

continue from the comment above:

if class needs to be WinRT aware it has to have as its first line REFCLASS macro. That's it. Compiler or another tool is aware of that and based on that generates necessary info/metadata. Syntax and everything stays exactly the same as ISO C++.

I just want to add something which I think is vital, but was totally dis/missed from what Jim said (by the way Jim, thanks for honest answers). When Jim says:

a) Yes b) n/a c) Because we didn't see this approach as the best solution for our users. We've tried to cover many of the issues that pushed us to C++/CX and I can understand if you disagree with some of them.

I strongly believe that here is the crux - who are those users Jim mentions? Not C++ community surely? So who else is there? The answer is clear and obvious: The .NET crowd.

MS as a very respectable company cannot just abandoned its current "users"  and tell them to feck off and that the technology they were lured to for over decade simply goes to butcher's house, and those folks need to learn new technology or learn a new phrase "DO YOU WANT FRIES WITH THAT?".

No, MS knows that this wouldn't be the right strategic decision. In view of the fact that .NET will/is going to be slaughtered in the near future, MS had to come up with something better/clever in order to:

a) keep a face

b) confirms to its "users" that those who stick with it can depend on MS and will not be abandoned by this company

c) keep an image of a respectable company

c) holds to its "users"

needed to ease the pain of switching between technologies.

There were few options - better ones (Jim in his answer, admits that there is a way to do this with C++) and worse ones. Why MS picked worse one? Every one knows that people who works at MS are world class pros and experts, so how is it possible that MS made a mistake in judging what's good for it's customers. Exactly - just because it's worse for you it doesn't mean that is worse for MS customers, do you see it now? MS picked what's right for its customers, not what's right for you. Now when the cards are reveiled everything starts making perfect sense.

Well, as they say in my old country if you don't know what it's all about it must be about money.  And if you think about this, MS knew who their customers/users are. There are .NET crowd. Not C++ folks.

There are much more .NET devs in the world than C++. To MS was obvious that it has to try to keep those people by its side. In order to do that, familiar syntax and workings needed to be put in place. Just to make the switch from .NET to WinRT as easy and gentle as possible. That's why there also wasn't any pressure on adding C++11 features. What for? Their users don't need them so why would they bother?

And what they (MS) could loose? Nothing really. .Net crowd will eventually switch to native WinRT - why wouldn't they? and those guys from C++ community who decide to use WinRT with the syntax from .NET world will be and extra addition to customers/users group of MS. Perfect plan. No chance for a loss.

@Jim and PFYB:

@Glen you're saying:

"Beyond that, I still hope people will also focus on, "the right language extensions" not just, "none". None is best iff it's right. As long as people can keep proving none is better, that's great though."

In my opinion language extensions have the right to exist iff there isn't an easy or possible way to achieve goals with already existing features. As we proved here this isn't the case with CX. Everything what CX does can be done as easily (and in most cases even easier) with C++. No need for extensions in this case.

@Charles && Everyone:

Could any of you ask mr sutter the question I've asked and didn't get an answer to it:

Ok, the question was/is:

Could that (the goal of C++/CX) be achieved without modifying syntax and semantics of C++,

if no, why? What is it in CX that couldn't be done using existing language futures + compiler's help + other (if necessary) tools help?

if yes, why did Microsoft do that?

I would really appreciate if you could ask mr sutter and if he would be so kind and reply to them, with presenting examples and counter examples of code that clearly show that what you did with CX was the only and best way to go and it could not be done with C++.

Regards

Charles, thanks.

@Charles, Hi, I'm sure lads from C++ community will do their best to formulate them as clearly and succinctly as possible.

Regards