My whole application (which is rather big, with a 20MB executable) is written in unmanaged C++. Because I can clearly see the advantages in using managed code, I want to start introducing managed code in my application, but where do I start?
Can I easily start to use C++/CLI and link it with the rest of my application? (although the C++/CLI syntax seems rather 'exotic').
Or is it better to move to C#, but what is the best way to 'link' this together with my unmanaged C++ code?
Does it make sense to compile all my C++ code with the /clr option? Will this work?
Do I have to worry about marshalling? Does this give an overhead or can I switch between managed and unmanaged without a performance penalty (just as I did 20 years ago when mixing fortran and C). Performance is really important in my application since it is a scientific application that sometimes processes several Gigabytes of memory.
Or does it only make sense to redesign the user interface, and only write this in C#, and keep the rest of my application (calculation logic, business logic, database interface, ...) in unmanaged C++?
Since my application sometimes needs to handle several Gigabytes of memory, I have a 64-bit variant. Is it easy to have 64-bit managed code? Woudl the garbage collector be still efficient if that much memory is used?
Simply state: where do I start?
Patrick