What is the current "standard" for Windows app development?

Coming from a Linux/Java/Web-based development background, I am looking to learn Windows app development. There seem to be three camps -- Win32 API, MFC, and now .NET (Forms,etc.). I was wondering what is the "best practice"as far as new development goes. Is .NET usurping all others now as the de facto standard for Windows application development, or ar all "real" apps still being written using only with Win32 API (or with MFC ).

Don't want to waste my time learning a technology that is considered dated and deprecated.

Any feedback would be most welcome.
~ed

Hello

If you don't want to develop web applications, i think using Win32 API is a good solution. Because Win32 API is compatible with old Windows (95), and may not change.

So using Win32 API, you are sure to be compatible with old windows, and with all windows during at least 20 years.

Just think about Win 3.1 applications. They just works fine under newer windows.

MFC is a wrapper class library to use Win32 API, you can use them, or not use them. Not using them can be an advantage when using different languages for developing an application, because MFC is specifically designed for Visual C++.

And knowing Win32 API is really useful to understand how applications are working or not working.

But there are also good reasons to use MFC or .NET.

I am not a MFC user, nor a .NET user, i just give a personal advice.
Do what your heart says to you.

Note that COM is theorically deprecated, but Windows shell is entirely based on this technology.

About .NET. Have a look at http://msdn.microsoft.com/newsgroups...f-4775c699c00b

Joel Spolsky (former Microsoft employee) wrote an interesting article recently about this issue, you may find it enlightening: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/APIWar.html

Thanks for the feedback guys. Really helped alot. The Spolsky article was very enlightneing. Sounds like there really is no clear consensus, and the future, though anybodys guess, will have us all learning yet more inventive ways to blue-screen a box :).