Question
I'm new to Windows programming and after reading the Petzold book I wonder: is
it still good practice to use the TCHAR type and the _T() function to
declare strings or should I just use the wchar_t and L"" strings in new
code?
I will target only modern Windows (as of this writing versions 10 and 11) and my code will be i18n from the start up.
Answer
I would still use the TCHAR syntax if I was doing a new project today. There's not much practical difference between using it and the WCHAR syntax, and I prefer code which is explicit in what the character type is. Since most API functions and helper objects take/use TCHAR types (e.g.: CString), it just makes sense to use it. Plus it gives you flexibility if you decide to use the code in an ASCII app at some point, or if Windows ever evolves to Unicode32, etc.
If you decide to go the WCHAR route, I would be explicit about it. That is, use CStringW instead of CString, and casting macros when converting to TCHAR (eg: CW2CT).
That's my opinion, anyway.
