Hi! I first started working with MFC when I was a developer at Bristol Technology. At Bristol I helped port MFC to strange platforms like Silicon Graphics and Sun Workstations. After pulling my hair out for years fighting UNIX and X windows, I thought it would be cool to do 100% Windows/MFC programming and co-founded Stingray Software with my buddies from grad-school. (We make some really cool MFC class libraries - Objective Grid, SEC++ and Objective Plug-in (coming soon)). We're located in Chapel Hill, NC.

In the transition from Bristol to Stingray, I tried to learn as much about MFC as possible and much to my disappointment there wasn't a groovy FAQ like there is for most UNIX topics (X windows, widgets, Xt, sendmail, etc..) so I thought that writing a MFC FAQ would be a great way to really get to know MFC better and help out fellow MFC programmers - as well as make the planet a better place to live in general.

That was about a year ago and since then the MFC FAQ has grown to be a pretty hefty document. The MFC FAQ gets tons of hits a day (I stopped counting around 500/day) and there are over 5000 people on the instant-faq FAQ notification list! Another exciting bit of news is that Microsoft is going to be shipping the MFC FAQ on the next copy of MSDN in a very nice Microsoft-ized format!

Oh yeah, in addition to the MFC FAQ stuff I write a tips (WingTips) column for Pinnacle publishing's Visual C++ newsletter and I co-wrote a book called MFC Internals all about how MFC works, its warts and stuff like that. I also co-write a column in Dr. Dobbs called Undocumented MFC and I just finished writing a couple of chapters for the forthcoming Visual C++ MasterClass from WROX press. Phew - now you see why this column is so late!! Ever have dreams (nightmares?) about MFC? - I do!!!

Anyway, this CYBER-column will be a sneak preview of some FAQs that are coming in the next rev of the MFC FAQ. This is nice because it lets me publish FAQs without having to go through the FAQ release process and hopefully I can get some feedback from the MFC crowd before they actually go into the MFC FAQ document.

One thing I really like to put in the FAQ are book reviews, so if you've read any new books and want to comment on them or if you want to submit a FAQ, drop me a line at scot_wingo@msn.com. I always like it when people flame books (even mine - I dare you!) because I hate the 100% politically correct stuff that you find in most places on the 'net. In other words - if you have some dirt for the MFC FAQ, send it to me and I'll put it in there.