Why MFC Sucks

The Microsoft Foundation Classes (MFC) make up a framework for developing Microsoft Windows applications. This is why MFC doesn't cut the mustard.

• MACROS_ALL_OVER_THE_FREAKIN_PLACE()
• Compiler-specific guard-comments, such as:
  //{{AFX_MSG(CMyApp)
  afx_msg void OnAppAbout();
  // NOTE - the ClassWizard will add and remove member functions here.
  // DO NOT EDIT what you see in these blocks of generated code !
  //}}AFX_MSG
  DECLARE_MESSAGE_MAP()
  
• Tight cohesion AND tight coupling
• Poor abstraction from the win32 API
• Use of structs where classes are appropriate
• Structured message-handling, rather than a more Object-Oriented approach
• Document/View has ambiguities in responsibility (i.e. where should your OnPaste() handler be?)
• Globals
• Hungarian Notation blown way the hell out of proportion.
• Design Patterns are non-existent

Some of these things were down due to trade-offs that had to be made. For example, the message passing architecture was chosen because using lots of virtual functions would have been too expensive. On the other hand, most of them could and should have been cleaned up quite a bit. Look at Java's JFC for a much better library from a DESIGN perspective. The implementation is rather shoddy, but it's a clean, intuitive, and very flexible library, with a lot of attention paid to design issues. It's too bad I can't use this library for my C++ programs (at least without paying the performance price).