Visual C++ and C++ Standard

Screaming Lunatic writes: "There is an interview over at codeproject about the future of C++ and .NET. Since I don't really care about .NET, the interesting part of the article is about the quest to standarize Visual C++. If you're going to code for Windows, Visual C++ is one of your few choices for a IDE/compiler combo. (Even though, if I'm not mistaken, you can hook gcc up to the IDE.) M$ seems somewhat in favor of conforming to the C++ standard, which is surprising. They talk about pushing forward with template compliance. I'm still waiting for them to get the variable declarations in for-loops right. They also claim to beat several popular compilers in compliance tests."

Comments

templates, for-loop-scoping, etc

[devphil]

Microsoft is definitely full of shit when they consider 'export' to be "theoretical" only. But implementing export is hard; witness the number of compilers that have managed to do it so far. I don't blame MS for putting it off; I blame MS for lying about their reasons for doing so. (If they'd just said, "Implementing this is a freakload of work and we'd rather point our engineers in a more revenue-profitable direction," then I could accept that, too.)

The for-loop scoping bug has a command-line switch to toggle correct behavior. Unfortunately, with it on, large chunks of their own MFC code will no longer compile.

Dinkumware was contracted to provide the library for VC++. They have released their own patches (freely downloadable) to the library headers. With those patches applied, your library is as ISO-compliant as it can be given the (immense) deficiencies of the compiler itself.

For me the big killer is templates -- lots of failures in things like partial specialization.

My recommendation to others who have to work under Wintel: there are plenty of good compilers out there, and they're ALL better than VC++. Comeau, IBM, EDG, KAI, you name it...