Ever since Microsoft released the Active Template Library (ATL) as part of Visual C++, Windows developers have speculated that the Microsoft Foundation Class Library (MFC) was no longer "en vogue" at Microsoft and that future efforts would focus on newer libraries such as ATL. Recently, Microsoft released another class library, Windows Foundation Classes (WFC), for Java Windows developers, which has unfortunately helped to fan the rumors that "MFC is dead."
The rumors of MFC's demise are definitely premature. Visual C++ 6.0 has added significant functionality to MFC and ATL in parallel, which indicates that both libraries will receive equal attention moving forward. Part of the problem is that the design goals of each library are sometimes not clearly stated and therefore are not clearly understood by the Visual C++ developer. MFC is designed to be a great class library for creating graphically rich, sophisticated Windows applications. ATL is designed to make it easy to create extremely lightweight COM objects and ActiveX controls. Each of these design goals has resulted in a different library to empower the developer.
Another common misconception is that MFC and ATL are mutually exclusive. This is definitely not the case! In fact, it is very easy to create ATL-based COM objects that use MFC. The only issue is that since many developers choose ATL for its lightweight nature, using MFC, which is feature-rich and "heavy," seems to contradict the reason for choosing ATL. While this might be the case for some developers, it doesn't make ATL and MFC mutually exclusive.
While ATL does not replace MFC, we do think it is an important part of Visual C++, so in this edition of Programming Microsoft Visual C++ we have added two chapters that cover the ATL class libraries.