Which platform should I use : native C++ or C#? [closed]

Question

I want to develop a windows application. If I use native C++ and MFC for user interface then the application will be very fast and tiny. But using MFC is very complicated. Also If I use C# then the application will be slower than the native code and It reqiures .NET framework to run. But developing GUI is very easy by using WinForm. Which one do you prefer?

Answer 1

"fast" and "slow" are subjective, especially with today's PC's. I'm not saying deliberately make the thing slow, but there isn't nearly as much overhead in writing a managed application as you might think. The JIT etc work very well to make the code execute very fast. And you can also NGEN for extra start-up speed if you really need.

Actually, if you have time to learn it, you might want to consider WPF rather than winform - this is a different skill-set, but allows you to make very good use of graphics hardware etc.

Also - .NET framework comes with new OS installs, and is still very common on those that pre-date it. So for me it would be a fairly clear choice to develop with C#/.NET. The time to develop a robust and fully tested C++ app (with no leaks, etc) is (for me at least) much greater than the same with C#.

Answer 2

Be careful not to optimize too early; you mention the speed of the code but for most Windows user interface operations, the difference is not noticeable as the main bottlenecks of drawing and disk access are no different for either approach.

My recommendation is that you use C# and WPF or WinForms for your user interface. If you encounter some slow downs, use a profiler to determine where and then consider replacing some business logic with native code, but only if there is a benefit.