My latest woes were in trying to take a program written in a Modern/Standard C++ style and build in some existing sources that were written for MFC.

Talk about a black hole of tool-chain hell...

Ya -- mixing complex hierarchical OO libraries and programming metaphors in one project? It does sound like a trip through the underworld.

But see, that's the point - C++ is intended to be multi-paradigm, and MS made it one-dimensional. Stdlib and Boost both take advantage of multiple paradigms while the MFC is a framework prison whence there is no escape.

But it's not OOP's fault, and to the degree that Microsoft had to release something early (in order to support their Win32 framework) and keep supporting it -- it's not their fault either.

You can go with a lightweight (?!?!) framework around your API, a la MFC, or more of a true framework, like OWL. But in either case, comparing a what? 12-year old framework system with something more recent isn't exactly apples and apples.

I'm not trying to make excuses but heck, the whole reason we grow new frameworks is because old ones get too bloated and brittle.

Rock on with Boost, but don't compare apples and oranges. Maybe it's me, but professionals are supposed to know the hard-to-use crap and should be able to swim around in that stuff like a fish in water.

Hey -- just my two cents. No matter how you cut it, C++ is a killer language when it comes to complexity -- and that's without the freaking frameworks!