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Motorola to purchase Metrowerks
chigs writes to us with the news that Motorola, chip maker extraordinaire, is planning to purchase Metrowerks, creators of CodeWarrior. Hopefully this will not effect Metrowerks expansion into the Linux-area, but Motorola said it plans to leave Metrowerks as a stand-alone company.
The current Linux kernel is built from C and assembler source with the GNU gcc compiler, regardless of the name of the distibution (Red Hat, Debian or whatever). The same goes for the various dynamic libraries. Hence they are all binary-compatible and will run any current Linux software.
no i've seen the latest (6.0 i think) and it rocks. if it's slow buy a new machine, we're in '99, dump your old 486
June. http://slashdot.org/articles/99/ 06/29/137212.shtml
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
I was just thinking to myself "Hmmm...I haven't seen any egregious spelling/grammar errors from Hemos lately...maybe I should change my sig." Then this story appeared.
/. takeover. You may now safely begin putting Rob, Jeff and crew through some training on "how journalism works".
Andover.net, if you are listening: We've all gotten over the shock of the
---
Put Hemos through English 101!
"An armed society is a polite society" -- Robert Heinlein
Linux MAPI Server!
http://www.openone.com/software/MailOne/
(Exchange Migration HOWTO coming soon)
Welcome to reality. IDE's (good ones at least) increase productivity, and 90% of the time are probably far more valuable to have than a good optimizing compiler.
The thing about Visual C++ is that the only "killer" part of it is the debugger - the debugger is by far the most streamlined debugger I've seen anywhere. You dont have things like how GnuPro's debugger won't let you set breakpoints unless you are stopped, or not preloading shared libraries so you can use breakpoints. The list goes on and on. The rest or the IDE is well... fair
Whether or not to use an IDE is a matter of personal preference, and I agree that you don't need them if you have good tools. However, the rest of your message is just idiocy. If you don't want all those idiot buttons, turn them off. When you throw away those resumes, it's only your loss. Not that they would want to work for an idiot like you anyway, but I have known some absolutely brilliant programmers who have done a lot of work with MFC. I mean guys who could get a job anywhere they want (except your lame-ass company, I guess).
BLOCK STRUCTURE breathing apparatus required for special maneuvers!!
Indeed, you're correct. But don't forget that "affect" can also be used as a noun (usually done by mental "health" professionals). The whole affect vs. effect differentiation isn't done at all well by current education. Nowadays, we're happy if kids can read the street signs.
On a similar note, how many times per day do you see somebody write that something is "definate"?
Oh, go on, check out my job.
--
Instead of gcc, could he be talking about libraries? I never thought about it until now. There's more to gcc than a compiler. There's the linker (um, you Unixy people call it a loader, I think) and a standard library (i.e. code for printf(), etc.). If the libraries are GPLed and you link them into your executable, that might cause a problem. (? I'm just trying to figure out what this AC might be talking about. :-)
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Start with her book The Deluxe Transitive Vampire. She uses lots of twisted gothic imagery in her example sentences, and the books are decorated with old woodcuts.
An example from The Deluxe Transitive Vampire page 49: Past Perfect Tense (action completed before another past time):
She had never pondered anything besides her fingernails before she met the troll.
Timofey had had premonitions of an early demise before the Grim Reaper winked and flashed his scythe.
Cupidity held sway over the best minds of the country; the abacus had ousted the lorgnette.
You'll definitely improve your vocabularly, since she uses lots of weird words like 'lorgnette'. She even makes at least one reference to Monty Python.
She has a whole series of books that cover different aspects of English. Other titles include The New Well Tempered Sentence, Torn Wings And Faux Pas and The Disheveled Dictionary. -- - Jon H, AKA Steeldriving, incommunicado
That's what LGPL (library GPL) is for. There are no restrictions for a commercial program linking to an LGPL library.
I am not an idiot. Please use my name to email me.
"That's right, I'm quoting myself."
-Upsilon
You need to get out more ... It will become crystal clear to you. And one more thing. You are stupid !
Umm lemme check. 3F17, "Bart on the Road". Bart is going on a roadtrip with Nelson and Milhouse, and he tells his parents he's going to a grammar rodeo. Lisa asks him "If there's a grammar rodeo, why didn't I know about it?" and he gives the response in my sig.
grep -ri 'should work'
Gcc, Egcs - all this is fine and dandy but doesn't even come close to quality offered by compiler vendors on Win ( MS, Borland, and unfortunately discontinued Watcom C++)
David. You need to bo more careful. You got almost killed today and you didn't even noticed.
Well, with the coming of Mac OS X, soon, the most popular Mac OS IDE might very well be GCC.
(surely I jest)
"The number of suckers born each minute doubles every 18 months."
-jafac's law
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
Think about it...now that RedHat have all the cash they want. Corel would be an easy buy.
my 0.02$
I had been wondering about that slow rise myself - The slow downward drift of MTWK was an annoying red mark on my e-trade portfolio, as well as causing concern about the health of a company who makes products I really like.
Hopefully this is a good thing for Code Warrior, I'd hate to see it go downhill.
That's a trick question. Some people would say that Unix is an IDE.
More to the point: If you need an IDE, then your desktop environment isn't good enough.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
I wonder what that means for the Mac version of CodeWarrior? Hopefully they won't shift their focus away from the Mac.
Damn, Apple should have bought them long ago.
you don't know shit about business. Motorola won't buy them to destroy them. Actually this can bring in lot of funding for MetroWerks. Wait before saying this crap
I'll drink to that. A years ago, I got a 'B' for A level Further Maths. I immediately applied to retake it, naturally. However, as the year drew on, I couldn't be bothered. I ended up taking the next years' exam having done absolutely no work in between. I saw many questions on the paper that I knew I could have answered the year before, but couldn't any more. Overall, the standard of my answers was much lower.
I got a 'B' again. The standards had dropped that much in a single year!
I wonder if we could instigate a class action against those who say the standards aren't slipping - it's devaluing the qualifications that we worked for by saying that today's A levels are just as meaningful.
Forgive my ignorance for I have been on a /. hiatus. When was /. bought?
This has nothing to do with that. All the groups and divisions in Motorola are almost like seperate companies. MCG is doing good stuff with Linux.. but they don't affect what SPS (which is much much bigger, BTW) does at all.. and vice versa.
All that said, Motorola now has a mandate from the CEO that all of the divisions have to start getting along better so it isn't too far fetched that MCG might contact (and might have already contacted) SPS to establish some synergy, here.
The group I work for is ANTI-Linux, BTW...
Everything above is my opinion and I could be wrong with all of it
which episode did it come from?
___
If you think big enough, you'll never have to do it.
I looked at the comments so far, and nobody seems
to grok the real reasons for the deal. MetroWerks
makes CW for other Motorola chips besides the PPC. It's somtimes hard to get compiler vendors to support tools for all of the different embedded chips out there and this should help ensure that there is such support for the myriad of embedded processors that Moto makes (even as Moto attempts to consolidate it's offerings down to a sane number.)
Ah, yes, "Anonymous Coward", the font of all wisdom and knowlegde.
Whatever you're smoking, it must be pretty good. You're obviously so blasted that you can't think straight. How can GCC tell if code is commercial? Have you ever tried running Debian?
I have. In fact, I'm using it right now. I happen to use it for 99% of my computer use (except at work, but I've started on a project to do some Beowulf programming). I've got this funny little program called "Civilization: Call to Power" installed.
It runs. It was almost certainly compiled with GCC. Funny thing, that.
No go back to M$ with the rest of the crackheads. We don't want people like you here.
Lies, lies, lies. The GPL does not interfere (much) with commercial rights, it simply has to do with the distribution of software itself, i.e. the code must somehow be available being the bottom line for most of us. Commercial entities are entitles to use this code, modify it, and even use it to develop proprietary products. That's right, M$ could use gcc to compile Windoze!
When it says "Works with Windows" that means, you have a 50/50 chance of getting it to work on your "Windows" box. We bought a Logitech Home Cam USB, it said it works with windows, But to our surprize you HAVE TO BE RUNNING WINDOWS 98/GOLD/SE. But did the box say that? NO! When they say it works on linux. That means, Hey if you are smart eunff you can get this to work. It should work on all major brands/flavors. GOOD LUCK! (Hey we don't lie) So you pick what you want....
You forgot to mention NT Intel vs. Alpha. Plenty of NT programs will run on Intel but not Alpha.
I sent Motorola(one of their personalities anyway) an angry email to this effect. Why would a company that makes such cool chips, and even their own motherboards, use computers that run on rival chips. Wouldn't there be a certain economy and positive publicity/ morale in using your own product.
;) These things are going to ROCK! Any word if AGP, Firewire or even USB are going to be part of this architecture? Is the IBM architecture the same as the CHRP stuff from years ago? Has there been continued development since then?
I don't buy the argument that the chip design software they use is NT only. They have enough $ pull here to get the software they need ported to any platform they want.
Ya think Dell buys a lot of Compaq computers for their operation? We have a StarMax3000 at work and it is a nifty little box.
1. Motorola, or part of Motorola, was pissed about Apples moves with cloning and decided to punish them by buying Wintel.
2. Motorola and IBM, and possibly Apple have teamed on the CHRP rebirth to grow the market for the G3/G4 chips in PC's.
I am psyched about Generic PPC mobos. Lets see... freeBSD/BSD/Darwin, LinuxPPC, Mac OS X Server and Client, Be(mayBe)... OS/2, others?
If there hasn't Apple is still going to have the edge with their io chipsets and bus speeds in the short term.
From what I've heard, it does work on the other distro's. However, given that it is proprietary, and that different distro's have different directory structures, it's certainly possible to have software that will only work on some distro's. Even when they are all using exactly the same kernel, libc, etc.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
I am psyched about Generic PPC mobos. Lets see... freeBSD/BSD/Darwin, LinuxPPC, Mac OS X Server and Client, Be(mayBe)...OS/2, others? ;) These things are going to ROCK! Any word if AGP, Firewire or even USB are going to be part of this architecture? Is the IBM architecture the same as the CHRP stuff from years ago? Has there been continued development since then?
I think the designs are pretty plain vanilla and not very cutting edge any more. IBM is just releasing their design, any customization/updating up to the people that actually make the boards. I can't see anyone getting them up to the level of Apple's boards but hey, who knows?
cheers,
Matthew Reilly
Stolen shamelessly from OpenStep, now: Mac OS X.
No hard feelings, since once you use it, you wonder why you'd ever use anything else. :-)
hey josh, stop reading slashdot
The best optimizing compiler for the Mac is MrC, which works both with MPW and as a plug-in to Codewarrior...
...at the same time, the guys responsible for MrC have stated on the MPW mailing list that Apple uses gcc (and until recently, egcs) for OS X development. So, it's not too hard to imagine that Apple will roll the MrC optimixations into gcc.
Why can't I have both? A nice IDE to develop in which happens to use a good optimizing compiler? It's not like they are at all mutually exclusive or anything.
> Nowadays, we're happy if kids can read the street signs.
I know all the different definitions for "affect" and "effect" (I think) but I'm no super-smart super-learner. The only reason I can tell the differences is because I read so much. Repetition of correct application -- in context -- is my best tool for learning.
I think that most people suck at grammar, spelling, and conversational English because they simply haven't paid any attention to good examples of same. (Maybe they're just reading Jon Katz, or something).
> On a similar note, how many times per day do you see somebody write that something is "definate"?
Or "seperate"? Or "rediculous"?
MJP
Don't try that "protecting the children" shit you people use to keep the tits and bad words off my TV. --Seanbaby
Can anyone confirm or deny that RedHat was bidding on MTWK? I've heard that the reason for the price rise earlier this week was because RHAT was making an offer. That would explain the premium MOTO paid, as compared to the stock price 4 days ago.
If there is truth to this rumor, then expect RHAT to start wielding their stock price to make some acquisitions. Also, look for them to purchase a tools company soon. Cygnus?
100 REM PISS OFF CODE FASCISTS 200 GOTO 100
...Moto drags its feet on the one technology that might save PPC (AltiVec - where are you?!).
Nope, Avitec is Motorola tech, it is IBM who are dragging their feet on it. Apple's next gen. machines will contain Motorola G4's w/Avitec.
cheers,
Matthew Reilly
They were making noise a while ago about getting rid of making desktop PowerPC's and focusing on embedded chips, which was a bigger profit.
--
"I was a fool to think I could dream as a normal man."
B. B. Buick
Read todays MacOSRumors and its blurb on Altivec. Nothing definitive, but enough enthusiasm to make you wonder. It's that sort of 'I wish I could brag about the killer machine I'm using' attitude... MacOSRumors isn't typically prone to exaggerating. Can't wait to plug a G4 into my old 7500!
About a year ago I distinctly remember Motorola saying that they wanted out of the 'desktop CPU chip' business, because it was a market segment where they couldn't compete with the x86 parts vendors. This would definitely be the case after Apple killed off all the Mac clones, leaving Motorola with a single customer for said chips.
Apple is NOT the only customer for PowerPC. Not even the high-end PowerPC chips like the 750. In fact, considering all PowerPC sales, more chips went into NON Apple Mac than into Apple Macs. Many 750's and other high-end PPC chips are used in network routers and very high end printing, maybe even more apps than that.
/. topic, 1-2 days?
Not like anyone would see this comment, as dead as this topic is by now. What's the average lifetime of a
"Though it may take a thousand years, we shall be FREE."
First of all.. forget desktop computers. Motorola couldn't care less about PCs and desktop toys. They've always built superior chips but they still get slaughtered by Intel. In the grand scheme of
:-\
things (at least from the industrial perspective), PCs will have been a passing fad and a battle that Motorola lost.
For years Motorola has been shipping boards with stock SVR4 and gcc. For better or worse (better to my mind) they've avoided forming strategic relationships with OS vendors (like Sun, MS, WindRiver, etc). They make hardware (very good hardware when you compare it to all the rest) and don't get fancy or "strategic" when it comes to the software that runs on it.
For the past year, they've been offering Linux with their PPC boards (and providing source for baseline drivers). Recently they formed a partnership with Caldera. For a number of technical, psychological and economic reasons, it made sense for them to embrace (exploit) Linux. This is A Good Thing.
Given this picture, there's nothing sinister in deciding that they want to "sexy" up their stock compiler by buying Metroworks. Sure Metroworks (the Edith Bunker of development tools) is junk but was Intel gonna let Motorola buy Cygnus?
Motorola is in no position to strong-arm (pardon the pun) other vendors (a la Intel & M$). Besides they've never done business that way.
It seems lately on Slashdot that the FUD flies from every direction...
I still sit at my Mac.
No no.... What you do if you buy something that goes way down is buy more of it when it goes way down. That way, when it goes back up above your average cost, you can sell it at profit.
Motorola better be telling the truth.
grep -ri 'should work'
At least when you see a box and it says requires Windows you know it'll work if you have Windows. You see a box and it says 'needs linux' you've gotta think. Is that RedHat, SuSE, Caldera that i've got.
If you're a debian user you're screwed anyway as that wont run commercial software.
This fits *perfectly* with last week's IBM's PowerPC announcement last week.
Someone made a good point that, as much as PowerPC has advantages over x86 -- less heat production & energy consumption, greater integer floating point and soon vector processing, etc. -- PowerPC still lacks a good optomizing compiler (at least on Linux).
I don't think Motorola would be buying Metrowerks if PowerPC were going to remain an "embedded chip" or a "Mac chip" provider. Now, lets see them bring back the StarMax (my first Mac after years of PC).
You know probably as much about Linux and its distributions as I know about breeding poultry. nico@idnet.fr
well i bite the flame, 1st. Visual C++ IDE stinks, its bloated,slow,
Motorola Computing was at Linux World in San Jose. So maybe it's a good thing for Linux. Now what I want to see is Motorola port their "docking" software for their cellphones (i1000) to Linux. They've got a Windows version to manage the phone number database. The phone has a docking station similar to a palm pilot in that it (I believe) connects to the serial port.
Speaking of docking, isn't 3COM supposed to be working on software for Linux for the palm pilot? Sure, Kpilot looks great, but it's buggy as hell. At Linux World Applix had a version that exports data from the pilot, but won't read it back in. Haven't tried it yet, but I'd be willing to pay for a decent docking program for my pilot and my phone.
David
I think it's weird and spooky that all these bigger companies are buying out the things I know and love [slashdot, icq, winamp, what-have-you (I've always wanted to say that)]. What's up with this? As soon as This Guy does the same thing, I'm gonna buy a cat.
Bah. Go get back to work on Bob 2.0
code warrior is worse particularly the linux version
It's a shame they decided to buy a compiler instead of just dumping money on Cygnus like Intel did. Intel had the right idea.
Although, I guess, since many of Motorola's CPUs wind up in Macs, there's a certain logic in a backing a full IDE.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Well, hopefully after the Justice Department breaks up the Redmond monopoly, the Development-oriented "Baby Bill" will create VC++ for Linux.
Debian is GNU/Linux not just ordinary Linux the GNU part means that only free software can run on it.
What's the point?
Is this to distract stockholders from the Iridium disaster?
D
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One of the biggest revenue streams for Metrowerks has been building customer compilers for specialized embedded chips. XYZ company will come out with a new embedded chip and then pay Metrowerks $xyz to develop a compiler to be bundled with the chip to be sent out to developers. With Motorola buying out Metrowerks, competing embedded chip makers will now have to find another compiler-maker or write it themselves (a HUGE overhead for the budget of a chip design project!). And the icing on the cake is that Motorola will now get their own embedded chip compilers at cost! seth@sansa.net
Although I personally don't like the second usage of the word, I believe it's actually correct. Generally, "affect" is a verb, while "effect" is a noun. "Effect" as a verb has an entirely different meaning.
Sorry, I'm feeling pedantic today - the UK Government claimed that 'A' level standards aren't slipping, even though this year's results show a higher pass rate than last year's for the 17th year running. I'm doing my bit to fight against the creeping stupidity of the population.
That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it :)
Well, if you can get over the fact that it's a Microsoft product and open your eyes rather than closing them and chanting the "It's Bloated" mantra hoping it will go away, you might see that's it's a pretty nice IDE. The scripting is very powerful. It does smart-indent the way it should be done. You CAN customize the color and the font. The search&replace supports regular expressions so you can do the funky replacements that you usually have to do in vi. The Intellisense drop-down thing is huge, especially if you are working with classes that you aren't intimately familiar with. And that's leaving out the Windows-specific stuff. I find CodeWarrior for Linux to be a little clunky but usable. Every other IDE I have tried for Linux has sent me back to gvim & make.
This is very bad news. The end of all things pure and good.
Motorola, the biggest manufacturer of the PPC, and the platform's greatest enemy, will now force Metrowerks to go x86-only. What a shame. (no it doesn't make any sense, but this is Motorola we're talking about, the company that, on a temper tantrum, unloaded it's desktops based on it's own CPU, and went and played suck-up to WinIntDell.)
"The number of suckers born each minute doubles every 18 months."
-jafac's law
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
People should try out kdevelop at www.kdevelop.org. It is still beta but shows much promise for thouse who want a VC++ type of IDE.
oooh. Let me fire up my Visual C++ for Palm OS....
My guess is that this is due to MetroWerks' continued support of the PowerPC platform, and their support for Motorola's next extension of the PPC architecture, AltiVec, which is suppposed to show up in the next generation of PowerPC chips, the G4.
Read it both ways...it makes a huge difference in the meaning of what you are saying.
I predict this will be as healthy for metrowerks as Compaq was for DEC.
P.S. Motorola hasn't shown any knack for being invloved in software in any way.
They're a cell phone and IC company.
You'd know this if you "knew shit".
Where else might they shop for OS's? Linux certainly. BeOS? I doubt it, with Intel investing in Be.
What about Amiga?
--
"I was a fool to think I could dream as a normal man."
B. B. Buick
They are not a cell phone and IC company. They make cell phone's and IC.
Cell phones contain no s/w (fallacity).
They do software just in some area the casual computer user would not know about. You should go to their products page and read up. BTW, the s/w I am actually referring isn't something you find in a box at local computer store next the millions of boxes of games, or actually on a website.
That explains it! I was WONDERING why the stock price has steadily been creeping up in the past week or so. I bought it at $5 ~1yr ago, and it's gone down to about 2 something in that time. I was sure I lost my money (Like SYQT). And then this week it approached, and hit, 5! Woa! I said, I was confused what to do (But RHAT now covers all my losses, 100 @ 75 today sold. ;) Now I don't have to worry about MTWK, since, it seems, MOT will pay me. (OR should I still sell now if I can get 6.25 or more?)
On another note, I was wondering, HOW IS THIS POSSIBLE? Isn't this like insider trading or something? Or maybe the rumours were going around, and enough people believed them? But still, is distributing information like that on the up and up, or..? Just curious.
-Ajay
(Ohh, wow, Slashdot works with Lynx now, great/finally!) (And I still can't understand why COSFF (CORL), MTWKF (MTWK), etc, change(d) their symbols?! Screws my E*Trade acct up a little. (Mainly annoying.))
Metroworks is problably the most kcik ass company out there right now. Being bought by Motorola could be a bad thing, if mot messes with a good thing. It could also be a good thing for metrowowrks if it can get access to some of that mot capital. My Page: http://www.polarbeartravels.com/spacedata/TrivialA pplet.html
> but now that Alpha is owned by intel,
I thought Alpha (made by DEC) was obtained by Compaq when they bought DEC. And Compaq continues to push the Alpha line of servers/wkstations, right?
Frankly, I'm happy when this is the biggest screw-up in an article Hemos posts. And, yes, your second usage was correct--it's basically a synonym for "create" when used as a verb.
The only VC++ advantage I care about is that it generates very fast code. Unfortunately, it only compiles a proprietary "extended subset" of standard C++. It's hard to write programs that work properly under both VC++ and non-Microsoft compilers, much more so than it was with VJ++ versus real Java.
I bought CW at the Linuxworld show and unfortunately it has problems far worse that the bloatiness of VC++ you talk about. I am looking into kdevelop right now.
But many people will then think that it will only work on RedHat and then think they've got two options:
1) Switch to RedHat
2) Don't use CodeWarrior
I'd choose (2) but many may choose (1). Forcing (or appearing to force) a person to use a particular Linux distribution (a shoddy one at that*) is just as bad as forcing them to use Windows. *I think RedHat is shoddy, you may disagree, that's why we need a choice in distributions.
gcc optimizations on LinuxPowerPC anyone? :)
That sounds good... and if they do that, they should start vamping up adverts on PowerPC. Those things need to get out there more (I want one):
Someone made a good point that, as much as PowerPC has advantages over x86 -- less heat production & energy consumption, greater integer floating point and soon vector processing, etc. -- PowerPC still lacks a good optomizing compiler (at least on Linux).
As opposed to that Cyrix I've got..... ugh
Insert mind here.
This is the kiss of death for metrowerks. Why are succesful companies obsessed with being purchased by dinosaurs???
I think this is a Good Thing.
CodeWarrior is the only reason that people held onto their macs (and through them Motorola).
Anything that will give Metrowerks more dollars to improve CodeWarrior is fine by me.
btw, the visual diff/merge tool of CodeWarrior is simply drool worthy. You have to see it in action to really appreciate it.
Za's Vid.
E/.
************************
You may fire when ready.
************************
What, me worry?
Nice to see the boys from Redmond here ...
I agree that Visual C++ is not the greatest IDE and it certainly is unsuitable to developing and debugging multi-threaded apps but it appears to be the most popular by a long shot.
However CW for Linux (and Solaris) is underwhelming. I've bought both and decided to continue using xemacs (and VisualWorkshop on Solaris).
Probably to decrease Metrowerks' profitability by telling them to stop producing products that target Intel CPUs.
IDEs are toys for students, optimizing compilers are tools for professionals.
More info at: Conference call article
Go Purdue!
(tips hat)
Here's my counter-troll:
Why bother with an IDE when you have Unix? IDEs have grown in popularity as Windows has spread. IDEs just make up for a lack of tools in your system environment.
Unix doesn't have these problems.
I've never seen a really good developer bitch about not having a dockable toolbar. I've seen several bitch about "all these little idiot buttons" making less screen space for their code.
Learn to walk without your crutches! While you're re-installing VC++ version 7 sp 4, I'll be compiling my release version to ship. When your resume crosses my desk and I see 5 years of MFC, I'll gag momentarily before moving on to the next one.
I've used Visual C++ on an NT box, but in general it makes me a tad less happy then I am devving on a Solaris or Linux box w/ XEmacs, make, and gdb... but that's probably largely because of the work I normally do.
I loathe the project configuration/maintenance in VC++: give me Makefiles (and not the strange ones that VC++ exports, which in my experience A) usually don't work w/ nmake.exe, and B) are not exactly designed for readability or re-usability).
The other major beef is more with MSDN than the IDE: the documentation seems a lot less... functional than the man pages that I'm used to for Solaris and Linux. I'm used to seeing, for instance, mentions of which header files and libraries to reference for a particular function; any implementation bugs regarding behavior versus existing standards; and so forth -- and I'm used to man-page-style documents being reasonably *up to date*.
That's not to say VC++ has no redeeming features; it does. But if you intend to port to other OSes, or don't have (paper) Win32 programming references around, or so forth -- you might be better off with a different package.
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
well ill bite on the flame, First off , you must not have had much experience as a full time programmer, most programmers that have worked on any other platform besides Windows cringe at the clunky nature of the VC++ IDE. lemme list my impressions of DevStudio/VC++ 1st. Visual C++ IDE is bloated and slow.. 2nd. The only thing that VC++ offers over other products such as SlickEdit and CodeWarrior is its wizard support. (i think) (which cripple you as a programmer anyway) 3rd. VC++,DevStudio in typical MS style is not very configurable.(ie screen color, different emulation modes) 4th. I'm developing a large Windows Project now using nothing more then vim , cygnus bash shell ,and the vc++ compiler NOT the IDE! 5th. The help browser is a memory hog, crashy and unreliable (bookmarks don't work). 6th. I will admit the compiler its self is pretty snappy and traps a lot of errors. 7th Did I mention that the IDE is Bloated and slow. man I hope to never work with you in the future. -ac
I have this mental image of about 3 or 4 Microserfs sitting in a room in Redmond reading /. and being paid to post crap like this.
Do you really think this is going to change anyone's minds?
"Oh, wait! I've been using this 'free' OS that I can have the freedom to configure however I want, and it never crashes, runs fast and has thousands of talented programmer improving applications for it daily. What was I thinking?! There's no Visual C++ for Linux! Quick, I've got to wipe out my harddrive and install NT right away!"
Why don't you go back to stealing all the innovative ideas from other companies while driving them out of business with illegal tactics? Oh, I forgot... you already did all that!
It can't be bad I know many people who work only with VC++, even the Mozilla project use it and of course it's used extensively inside Microsoft