RE: [GD-Windows] Visual C++ .Net

[Stefan B. <sbo...@te...>]

> Is anyone here seriously thinking about upgrading their MSVC to MSVC
> .Net?  Information on the latter is very sparse at Microsoft's Web
site,
> and -- here's the killer -- even if it offers incremental
improvements,
> apparently it won't support generating code for Win95(!).  That is
just a
> flat out, no-brainer, deal killer for me because of our particular
> products.

   The Win95 comment only applies to .NET and DX8.1. If you don't use
these API's you're fine regardless of which compiler you use.

   Apart from that... Well, Visual Studio.NET is a *massive* product,
which contains a lot of cool things. Just a few things off the top of my
head:

---- VC++ v7:

     - The v7 compiler is much more standards-compliant, but still lacks
a few things such as Koenig lookup (I *think*), partial template
specialisation and some other rarely-used gunk. This is apparently
scheduled for the next VC release.

     - The STL implementation is new and improved (although I still use
STLPort4.5 for better cross-platform compatibility). 

     - MFC7 is also a nice step forward (mostly due to better
design-time tools). Good for those quick and dirty tools (although using
C# / the CLR would be preferred where possible).

     - Better code generation.

     - Whole-program optimisation. When using this .obj files actually
contain intermediate representation of the code, and the machine code
gets generated at link-time.

     - Loads of fancy/cool stuff for those poor people who have to write
ActiveX/COM components. Not so interesting to most us perhaps.

---- IDE/debugger:

  - Opinions differ, but I find the new IDE vastly better, and extending
it is almost trivial if you use the .NET framework. You can do some very
nice stuff here. The editors supports collapsing, and IntelliSense is
marginally more clever than VC6. VisualAssist.NET is still worth getting
though.

  - The runtime and debugger support mini-dumps, which is sort of like a
core-dump. When an application crashes and there is no debugger
installed, you get the option to save a crash dump, which can be loaded
back into the VS.NET debugger for further analysis. Very cool. [Although
you don't actually need VS.NET for this... the functionality has been
there for a while in the Platform SDK debugger and DBGHELP.DLL]

---- .NET

  Think what you will about Microsoft, but.NET is amazing. For tools
there is just no other option for me. If only Mono/dotGNU were more
advanced I might even attempt switching over to writing game code using
the CLR. My only problem with it is that there is no support for
STL-like containers.

  For me, it's a very worthwhile upgrade (and a no-brainer since we're
all on MSDN anyway here and thus get it "for free"). It might break some
of your code, but then it's probably because the code was broken in the
first place!

Cheers,
Stef! :)
--
Stefan Boberg - R&D Manager, Team17 Software Ltd.
bo...@te...