win32, mfc, .net

[joeyhkim]

Hi all. I'm sure this is a fairly commonly debated topic but i couldn't find much through search.

Well, i've learned the basics of c++ and can write all sorts of console programs, but whats teh fun in that? i want to move to window programs.

now i've heard about win32 api, mfc, and .net, and am rather confused on teh differences, pros, and cons.

I heard api is fairly low level and difficult to use?

Also, .net is the newest one right? It runs off a virtual machine, correct? doesn't that slow down the program?

If anyone could provide some help, it would be greatly appreciated.

thanks.

 

[cpjust]

Some of the WinAPI is hard to use, but other parts are easy. You just get used to it after a while.

.NET is the newest, and obviously it will be slower than a standard compiled program, but as I understand it, .NET's JIT compiler caches the code it compiles so that it doesn't need to re-compile frequently used functions. I haven't used it much, but it sounds like once the JIT compiles most of the code, the program could run about as fast as a natively compiled program.