Tony Vandiver wrote:
>    I often wonder if I've gone down the wrong road with Microsoft
> Visual C++ as my Windows development system of choice.  As it morphed
> into other things, I never really figured out what .NET was, but my old
> programs would load and compile, so I kept marching along with the
> updates and even though I had to struggle with handling the com port as
> a windows data stream, I finally got that to work and have used it over
> and over.
>
>    However, now it seems like it's a huge hassle to write anything on
> XP that's compatible with the majority of people I distribute my code to
> since upgrading to Visual C++ 2008.  I wondering what you guys use for
> PC side applications (not Linux - that's a topic I don't want to get
> into at the moment - been there, done that, got the T-Shirt, and still
> don't know what I'm doing).  Almost everything I've written interfaces
> to a microcontroller in some way - used to be through the serial port,
> and now is leaning toward USB, but for something that seems so trivial,
> why is it so difficult for me to publish something that all my users can
> install without having to install .NET this and that and this
> pre-install package for VC++ compatibility, and on and on without an
> end.  Invariably, I'm having to install my app on the customers machine
> myself and wind up googling all the error messages to find out that
> oops, you need to stand on your head first to get this to execute.  Is
> there another platform that I've missed along the way that everyone has
> moved to that allows an application to be loaded in one fell swoop and
> run the first time and every time on an X86 machine?  Java, Perl, VB?
> What are you guys/gals using, and when did I miss the boat, or should I
> have stayed on the one I was on (Visual C++ 5.0 originally before .NET)
> and count on the backwards compatibility of Windows?
>
> Thanks for any words of advice,

I used to be a big Delphi fan, until the programs I wrote started crashing 
on Windows XP computers with HyperThreading.

Recently, we needed to write a bootloader for one of our projects, and a PC 
utility to go with it. The guy who was working on the project, wanted to do 
it in VC++ .NET 2008, but he hated . I suggested trying C#, which I used 
briefly myself. He says he loves everything about it, especially the 
language and IDE features. To me, C# feels a lot like Delphi.

While a few years ago we resisted switching to .NET because the users would 
have to install it on their machines in order for the apps to run, today it 
is basically a non-issue, as most Windows PCs support it by default.

Bottom line, I don't think you missed the boat, switching to .NET a few 
years back would have probably been more hassle than it's worth. But now is 
a good time. :)

Vitaliy 

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