I can see dead people (The Sixt Sense, 1999). They are using MFC (1992-…)

dead-endThis was my first thought when I saw the legacy. I cried in silence for a while, but as soon as I found out that crying didn’t help I decided to handle it like a man. A real man. I had to do something that Steve Ballmer himself would be proud of.

 

So, lets drink one and brainstorm!

 

Of course, there are several options to kill the ugly bastard:

  1. Use the MFC feature pack (2008)
  2. Inject new WPF in your legacy
  3. Rewrite the application to WPF4 (2010)
  4. Host your legacy on WPF

In my opinion, MFC is not the way to go. It has no future. The feature pack enhances it looks substantially, but it is as if you are walking further into the dead end street. Sooner or later you reach its final dead end and have to rewrite all the newly added legacy.

 

You could inject WPF into your legacy backbone. This is possible and some people do that. But not me. To all you people who are considering this I would like to say: though shall not do that! It is like pimping your legacy, despite the pimping it still remains legacy. A piece of junk in a nice wrapping.

 

Then you could rewrite your legacy application to WPF. How desirable and number one wet dream for many programmers, but not always possible. Especially when your legacy is huge. Still some believe that you should retreat for a while (say a couple of years) and rewrite your application. How tempting, but I cannot find a sponsor.

 

Fortunately, there is another option. You can host your legacy on WPF. Let’s investigate that!