What to use now as VC++

I've been out of the programming loop for 2 years or so know and am a little lost at all of the C++ programming programs there are now. I need today's equivalent of Visual C++ 6.

What should I use Visual .Net ... or ... just what do I need .

Thanks... also... if NO-ONE around here do any xbox coding????!!!

I am... and I was hoping to ask some Q's.... maybe later or something...

Yes, Visual Studio .Net 2003 (or VS 2005 if you don't mind using betas) is the way to go. There is a common misconception that current Visual Studios only make .Net executables, and this is not the case. VS is still the best C++ solution for Windows, in my opinion.

Regards

If you're only looking to program in C++ (without .NET), a really good IDE to use is Bloodshed Dev-C++ . MUCH less bloated than VS and it's using mingw for its compiler

Check it out here:

http://www.bloodshed.net/dev/

I still use visual c++ 6.0
In my opinion, unless you need .NET (as md5 says) - there isn't any major reason to change. Especially as your obviously familiar with 6.0

[TQN]

More and more people, projects ... are moving, porting from VC++ 6.0 to VS .NET 2003. The IDE, intergrate debugger, compiler, language support ... of VS .NET is far better than VC++ 6. So, why we still insist on using VC++ 6.

What do you think of Borland C++ Builder? If your like RAD or pure C/C++ programming, this is another good choice.

[tom324]

I still use VC++ 6.0 but plan to move on VS .NET 2005 as soon as it becomes available in non beta form. The reason for that is expected new better debugging tools integrated in VS .NET 2005. Hint: Matt Pietrek is working on this.

Tom

I do use GCC and Cygwin often and also use Dev-Cpp on many occasions but for this project I can only use Mircosoft... Now is the .NET stuff like the 6.0 version but just a new version....?

The thing I'm trying to work on is compatible with Microsoft Visual C++ 6.0 and I wanna make sure that it will work with .NET as well.....

Also... is there any _real_ reason NOT to use the BETA 2005?

I still use visual c++ 6.0 ,and VS .NET 2003 too.
In my opinion, If you will not use Microsoft .NET frameworks (this is a virtual machine live a Java) VS .NET 2003 or Higher is more best IDE than VS 6. For Example the Class View is more certainly in C++ grammar, specially when using ATL.

[gigaman]

I'd say go for Visual Studio .NET 2003 (or even 2002, there isn't much difference). In my opinion, the environment is much better and the C++ compiler generates better code than VC6.

Ok... well after looking around some more I have concluded that the Studio .NET 2003 will suit me best esp. since I will be using it with the XDK .

Thanks guys... also quick question to go along with this though.... does anyone know any reason to use Mingw32 compiler over Cygwin (or viceversa)

thanks1

Originally Posted by gigaman

I'd say go for Visual Studio .NET 2003 (or even 2002, there isn't much difference).

I beg to differ on this... The IDE wasn't much changed, I agree, but the C++ compiler had many notable changes. So for the topic at hand, I recommend VS.Net 2003 highly over 2002...

[nuemga2000]

Originally Posted by Satyric0n

I beg to differ on this... The IDE wasn't much changed, I agree, but the C++ compiler had many notable changes. So for the topic at hand, I recommend VS.Net 2003 highly over 2002...

I can second this ...
... if you want to restart with either 2002 or 2003, choose the 2003 version

Kerstin

There are some compiler bugs not fixed in VS.2003, use Intel CPP compiler instead.

[ArC]

There are some compiler bugs not fixed in VS.2003

Hm i recently noticed sth strange. The compiler seems to have problems with calculations with return values from functions within function arguments. E.g.

int SomeFunc( void )
{
int nSomeVal;
....
return nSomeVal;
}

void AnotherFunc( int nVal )
{
// do sth with nVal
}

void main(void)
{
AnotherFunc( SomeFunc() + 0x100 );
}

The call in main is not translated correctly so the value given to AnotherFunc is wrong...

use Intel CPP compiler instead

Hm well yes but you still need a linker and an IDE is quite useful, too.
So the best is to use MSVC++ 7.1 (2003) + Intel C++ Compiler 8.1 (as it can be integrated into MSVC++).
Just noticed that executables created by Intel C++ Compiler are generally bigger than those ones created with cl (M$' compiler).
But therefore it provides more otimization features (e.g. Parallelization, PGO, ...) as well as support for latest technology such as SSE3 aso...
Anyways I can remember that M$ announced support for PGO in MSVS 2005.