Programming Slim C++ Programs (Like Utorrent) for Windows

Programming slim C++ programs (like uTorrent) for Windows

The Windows Template Library is geared towards what you want to do. It's a light-weight, template-based C++ wrapper for the Win32 API. With it, you don't have to go through the pain of direct Win32 coding, but it doesn't add a lot of overhead like MFC.

GUI easy and fast without .NET framework?

Given:

1. You don't want to use Qt
2. You want to use Win API

The natural option is MFC. It's basically quite a thin wrapper around the Win32 UI API, but VS has an MFC UI designer that will save you a lot of work (no need to manually set the co-ordinates of controls etc.).

Does it still make sense to learn low level WinAPI programming?

This question is bordering on religious :) But I'll give my thoughts anyway.

I do see value in learing the Win32 API. Most, if not all, GUI libraries (managed or unmanaged) result in calls to the Win32 API. Even the most thorough libraries don't cover 100% of the API, and hence there are always gaps which need to be plugged by direct API calls or P/invoking. Some of the names of the wrappers around the API calls have similar names to the underlying API calls, but those names aren't exactly self-documenting. So understanding the underlying API, and the terminology used therein, will aid in understanding the wrapper APIs and what they actually do.

Plus, if you understand the nature of the underlying APIs that are used by frameworks, then you will make better choices with regards to which library functionality you should use in a given scenario.

Cheers!

Win32 .EXE format compromises intellectual property

The bottom line is that there is no way to protect a third party from working out what your program does. Your program can be debugged. If the computer can execute it, then a third party can reverse engineer it.

I believe that utorrent uses an image packer which is why you cannot inspect its imports easily. But all you need to do is inspect the unpacked image and all will be revealed.

Generating EXE out of IronPython script

I have created a C# application that uses the IronPython.dll and IronMath.dll to convert the IronPython scripts to executables. This doesn't require IronPython studio to be present. Only the DLLs are enough. The behavior of exe is same as that created by IronPython studio(Integrated with VS2008)

---

Related Topics