Newbie,C info needed.

[Jhon smith]

Hi all,Sorry if these come across as really stupid questions to ask,But I
need some info regarding the C language.


I am interested in learning C,But don`t know if it can do the following,or
if I`d need to learn C++,or Visual C++.

Can C write programs that display/use standard windows/menus/dialog boxes on
systems like win98 and XP,or can you only write programs that use consoles
for input/output.

As I have only seen small examples(The classic `Hello World` program),that
bring up console type windows,and not the type of windows I am used to
seeing with win XP.

Thanks for your help.

 

[Karthik Kumar]

Hi all,Sorry if these come across as really stupid questions to ask,But I
need some info regarding the C language.


I am interested in learning C,But don`t know if it can do the following,or
if I`d need to learn C++,or Visual C++.

Can C write programs that display/use standard windows/menus/dialog boxes on
systems like win98 and XP,or can you only write programs that use consoles
for input/output.

If you want any of those fancy stuff, you would need to get the help
of some API, but the C standard does not specify any of those things.
So if you learn C definitely those things are possible, but not
before you start using some toolkits.

 

[jemmaq99]

Hi all,Sorry if these come across as really stupid questions to ask,But I
need some info regarding the C language.


I am interested in learning C,But don`t know if it can do the following,or
if I`d need to learn C++,or Visual C++.

Can C write programs that display/use standard windows/menus/dialog boxes on
systems like win98 and XP,or can you only write programs that use consoles
for input/output.

As I have only seen small examples(The classic `Hello World` program),that
bring up console type windows,and not the type of windows I am used to
seeing with win XP.

Thanks for your help.

Jhon,

Keep in mind that this newsgroup is dedicated to discussing the
standard C language and does not discuss platform-specific issues
like Windows applications programming (which is what you are
describing). I would recommend you reissue your question to a group
like comp.os.ms-windows.programming.win32 or
microsoft.public.win32.programmer.ui.

But the quick answer is, "Yes" you can program Windows Applications
in C -- though it would NOT be in standard C since there are a number
of Windows-specific keywords and concepts necessary to get a
full-fledged Windows Application up and running. The most common
development platform is called "Visual C++", which includes a C
compiler, a C++ compiler, an editor, and other development tools.

See Charles Petzold's book "Programming Windows 95" (among others)
for a "Hello, World" that looks like a Windows App.

--J.

 

[Martin Ambuhl]

Hi all,Sorry if these come across as really stupid questions to ask,But I
need some info regarding the C language.


I am interested in learning C,But don`t know if it can do the following,or
if I`d need to learn C++,or Visual C++.

Can C write programs that display/use standard windows/menus/dialog boxes on
systems like win98 and XP,or can you only write programs that use consoles
for input/output.

Neither C nor C++ have anything like that in the portable language.
After all, Bill Gates hasn't yet forced his machine on all of (nor half
of, or even a quarter of) the machines on the world. On the other hand,
there are plenty of implementations of programming interfaces between C
programs and Windows. Jacob will no doubt be along shortly to make his
usual off-topic self-promoting spiel for his implementation. To preempt
that, his is LCC, a almost-C compiler with Windows support. Others that
offer such support include MinGW and Borland. And money will get you
such support from Bill Gates's very own company. Further discussion
belongs in a windows programming newsgroup.

 

[John Bode]

Hi all,Sorry if these come across as really stupid questions to ask,But I
need some info regarding the C language.


I am interested in learning C,But don`t know if it can do the following,or
if I`d need to learn C++,or Visual C++.

Can C write programs that display/use standard windows/menus/dialog boxes on
systems like win98 and XP,or can you only write programs that use consoles
for input/output.

As I have only seen small examples(The classic `Hello World` program),that
bring up console type windows,and not the type of windows I am used to
seeing with win XP.

Thanks for your help.

Neither C nor C++ provide built-in support for GUI programming,
graphics, sound, networking, file system management, etc. For that,
you have to rely on extensions and libraries provided by either by the
platform (the Win32 API) or on third-party extensions (such as
OpenGL).

Using these extensions, you can use C to write GUI-driven programs
(indeed, much WIndows software is developed with C and C++), and there
are numerous books and on-line guides to help you. However,
developing GUIs in C can be a tedious, error-prone, and frustrating
process, depending on which toolkit you use. Not fun, especially when
you're still learning the language.

If you're primarily interested in writing GUI-driven code on Windows,
you might want to look into either Java or the .Net platform (C++, C#,
or Visual Basic). Both provide high-level support for GUI programming
(and all the other fun stuff mentioned above). I've played with Java
and C# a little bit, and superficially they look very alike, but I
think C#'s class libraries are better named and better organized.
..Net *is* the wave of the future for Windows development, so you might
be better served learning that.

 

[Jhon smith]

Thanks very much for answering.