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Comment by renholder | Hacker News Reader

Calculator has been around since ninteen-eighty-something-or-other[0] and this seems to be a revamp of the base code, with a XAML (read: WPF) wrapper[1].

Aside from the obvious answer of them using C++ based upon "using something you know and that works", why shouldn't they have used C++? (Genuinely wanting to know/understand.)

It would seem like a monolithic task to rearchitecture the entire app versus just dropping the code-behind into a new UI wrapper, yeah? I'm not excusing it, to be sure, just explaining the potential ROI perspective they might've had when they stuck with C++.

[0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Calculator#History

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Calculator#Windows_10

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The code base has changed quite a bit since 198x:

- https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20040525-00/?p=...

- https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20160628-00/?p=...

- https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20180704-00/?p=...

This might also explain the choice of C++. Rather than rewriting their calculation engine in another language (it works, so a rewrite is rarely a good idea), UWP (not WPF; XAML is merely an XML dialect for object graphs and works pretty much anywhere if you want it to) allows you to write the UI in C++ (C++/CX to be precise) as well, and the UI code is for the most part not that complicated that C++ is a major impediment. That, and of course, most developers for Windows applications at Microsoft are familiar and well-versed in C++. Rewriting it in JavaScript or C# may take longer.

>Rewriting it in JavaScript or C# may take longer.

This is very true. If we look at Exchange, as an example, most of it was ported to .NET between E12 (2007) and E14 (2010) but Information Store wasn't able to be fully ported to C# until E15 (2013)[0,1].

[0] - https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/exchange/managed-store-exch...

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Microsoft_Exchange_...

It will be interesting to see how soon they will convert it to C++/WinRT because C++/CX will be retired at some point.

The first step toward full C++/WinRT support within Visual Studio and the eventual retirement of C++/CX happened today with the availability of build 17025 of the Windows SDK Insider Preview.

https://moderncpp.com/2017/11/01/cppwinrt-in-the-windows-sdk...

why shouldn't they have used C++

I didn't say they shouldn't, I just thought it was interesting to see.

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