Part of my day job is maintaining and expanding a Win32 / MFC / C++ / C app I originally wrote over 25 years ago. It works well, a couple thousand people use it every day and say nice things, and it’s backwards compatible to XP, which some of our clients still have.
This week, I started exploring a re-write, using modern Windows languages and frameworks, with the idea than surely — surely — things have become significantly less complex in the last couple of decades.
Oh.
Oh, no.
Oh, God, no.
@gknauss I love MFC and the Win32 API.
I actually don't think there was much wrong with them (certainty certainly not anything a casual programmer such as myself could see anyway).
Fast, well documented and capable of anything I ever really wanted of them.
@gknauss About every two years, I think: “I’ll take a look at the latest Windows desktop app development situation. It MUST have regained some sanity by now.”
I’m…still looking.
I have very fond memories of the old VB6 days. Limited, yes. But it was so much easier to get started, and the programming model made sense.
It seems that app development complexity has grown unimpeded while overall app quality has gotten worse. It’s disappointing, because it doesn’t have to be that way.
I'm curious... some of your clients are using Windows XP, nearly 10 years after its EOL?
Outside of an industrial system or highly closed system (like the NY Subway's use of OS/2 Warp, or a cash register), what is their reason for using such an old system?
@emacsen Small or single-practitioner law firms, mostly, especially with older users. No IT support and “It works, so why should I change?” A lot of lawyers are still using WordPerfect.
It is a vanishingly small percentage, but it does happen. We still have Vista and 7 users, too.
But I also admit to a stubborn pride in just keeping the damned thing compatible.
Ah. That makes sense, though I'm always scared that law firms are running on these old systems that have no security patches, etc.
In some ways, I genuinely wonder if an online service model wouldn't be a better choice for them.
Indeed. I know of the Wordperfect situation and law firms. I'm old enough to have used WordStar.
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I've long thought that for folks in your situation, if there wouldn't be some utility in something like WINE for Windows. It does exist:
https://liliputing.com/wine-on-windows-lets-you-run-windows-apps-on-windows-through-windows-subsystem-for-linux/ but it's really for modern Windows systems.
Part of me really thinks that for clients like this, they should be on ReactOS :)
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