Chapter 1 -- Hello, MFC

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Chapter 1

A few short years ago, the person learning to program Microsoft Windows for the first time had a limited number of programming tools to choose from. C was the language spoken by the Windows Software Development Kit (SDK), and alternative Windows programming environments such as Microsoft Visual Basic hadn't arrived on the scene. Most Windows applications were written in C, and the fledgling Windows programmer faced the daunting task not only of learning the ins and outs of a new operating system but also of getting acquainted with the hundreds of different application programming interface (API) functions that Windows supports.

Today many Windows programs are still written in C. But the variety of Windows programming environments available means that commercial-quality Windows programs can be written in C, C++, Pascal, BASIC, and a number of other languages. Moreover, C++ has all but replaced C as the professional Windows programmer's language of choice because the sheer complexity of Windows, coupled with the wide-ranging scope of the Windows API, cries out for an object-oriented programming language. Many Windows programmers have concluded that C++ offers a compelling alternative to C that, combined with a class library that abstracts the API and encapsulates the basic behavior of windows and other objects in reusable classes, makes Windows programming simpler. And an overwhelming majority of C++ programmers have settled on the Microsoft Foundation Class library, better known by the acronym MFC, as their class library of choice. Other Windows class libraries are available, but only MFC was written by the company that writes the operating system. MFC is continually updated to incorporate the latest changes to Windows itself, and it provides a comprehensive set of classes representing everything from windows to ActiveX controls in order to make the job of writing Windows applications easier.

If you're coming to MFC from a traditional Windows programming environment such as C and the Windows SDK, you're already familiar with many of the concepts you need to know to understand Windows programming with MFC. But if you're coming from a character-oriented environment such as MS-DOS or UNIX, you'll find that Windows programming is fundamentally different from anything you've done before. This chapter begins with an overview of the Windows programming model and a peek under the hood at how Windows applications work. It continues with an introduction to MFC. After the preliminaries are out of the way, you'll develop your very first Windows application—one that uses MFC to create a resizeable window containing the message "Hello, MFC."