Windows Application Development

The Win32 API, or Platform SDK as it is sometimes called, is the core set of routines that Microsoft provides to programmers. Although it is possible to create many types of programs without using this API, almost all sophisticated Windows development requires a good understanding of it. Most of Blueberry's developers have been working regularly with Platform SDK since Windows 3.0 was released, and so have extensive knowledge of this critical resource.

Borland C++ Builder is Blueberry's preferred environment for the development of graphical Windows applications. BCB is a development environment for applications and a component-based system for GUI design: it’s similar to Microsoft’s Visual Basic or Borland’s Delphi and uses C++ as its underlying programming language. However, the real strength of BCB lies in the huge library of third-party components available, which deliver complete solutions to problems such as graphing, reporting, printing, etc., etc. Appropriate use of ready-made components helps us give our clients more functionality for their money.

Although we prefer to use BCB, it’s still necessary to use Microsoft’s Visual C++ for some technical Windows programming. Most of Blueberry's developers have extensive experience of MSVC, and many are also experts in the Microsoft Foundation Classes—the GUI library used by MSVC.

COM is a Microsoft standard that allows applications to be put together from modules (components) written in different languages. In practice, COM is the “base standard” on top of which many different Microsoft technologies are now being built—like ActiveX, Automation, DCOM, etc. Blueberry has significant experience of creating COM components, and uses COM whenever it elegantly solves a client’s problem. However, Blueberry feels that COM is a somewhat over-complicated standard, and has recently been investigating some alternatives.

Reading the computer press, you'd be forgiven for thinking that XML is a religion - not a simple file format. The hype about XML has happened partly because it solves the problem-of-the-moment: business system integration. Business and software companies have spent billions over the past few years trying to make their systems work together. Technologies like Corba, DCOM and Java RMI all claim to make this easy, but mostly they've been found to be too complex.

XML (and SOAP) solves this by returning to first principles - XML files are plain text, readable by anyone - so debugging systems using XML becomes much easier. Blueberry has used structured text files in many projects before the advent of XML, as part of our 'design for testability' process. Now, XML is used whereever possible.