Re: Games made with BBC BASIC for Windows

On Thu, 23 Oct 2008 02:10:02 -0700 (PDT)
Richard Russell <news@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Oct 22, 11:53 pm, Rob Kendrick <n...@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
Microsoft Office hasn't used the Windows API
for drawing toolbars, menus, status bars, etc for years: it's
plotted them themselves.

Microsoft Office is about the worst example you could choose. In a
desire to look 'different' it has broken just about all the guidelines
that are *supposed* to make Windows applications present a uniform
user interface. Of course, strictly speaking, "plotting them
themselves" still involves using the Win32 API (e.g. via user-drawn
controls or DIB sections).

Sorry for choosing an example countered your assertion :) And of
course, any X application is using the same API to plot the user-drawn
controls or bitmaps, too - so the situation is identical.

It's pretty easy to make the popular two GUI libraries under UNIX
look identical.

Again you seem to miss the point. It's not the appearance that's the
issue, it's the coding. Under Windows (straight API, forget the
wrappers) the same code runs on all versions from 95 to Vista.

And if you want to limit yourself to such, precisely the same is true
under UNIX and X. (Just use xlib.)

It's easy to write a program that'll run on almost all recent
versions of Linux.

I don't dispute that - because you added "recent". Sure, Linux has
addressed the problem to some degree and it is now easier to write
code that will run on multiple versions. But the comparison I made is
still valid: Windows has been binary-application-compatible for
roughly 14 years and there are still large numbers of Win9x systems
out there.

As I said, 1998 is still accessible. Further back is possible. But
nobody bothers - that doesn't mean it's not possible. And the vast
majority of Windows developers don't bother these days either, so
again: the situation is identical.

Just last week I ran a binary from 1998 on my Ubuntu 8.04 system.

Was this a GUI program or a console (command line) program?

MOTIF.

Why would anybody use the Win32 API directly?  It's ugly and
baroque.

That's a matter of opinion, not of fact. Large numbers of programmers
do choose to use the Win32 API directly, because it gives them a finer
degree of control and better compatibility across Windows versions.

Although I think it's extremely difficult to find any modern Windows
software that'll run on even Windows 98, let alone 95. Perhaps a few
pieces of software written by enthusiasts. It's still easy to write
software that'll run on RISC OS 3.1, but why bother?

It also avoids being tied to a particular language or framework,
because the 'wrappers' are usually proprietary. Lastly, using the
Win32 API gives you a better feel for what goes on 'under the hood'.
Just browse the Windows newsgroups to see how many people add 'plain
Win32 API please, no MFC' to their questions.

I imagine similar to the number of people who say "How do I do this in
assembler, 'cause that's faster and cooler and it'll look great to my
friends." :) Additionally, several of the class libraries and wrappers
I suggested weren't proprietary. And wanting to know what goes on
under Windows's hood is a sign of a sick mind.

Again, you seem to be suggesting that Windows has some magical trick
that UNIX lacks. This is not the case; it is simply that developers
don't bother making software backwards compatible with operating
systems from a decade ago because there is no point - the OS upgrades
are generally free, amongst other reasons.

B.

.

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