Microsoft Visual C++ .NET Standard 2003 [OLD VERSION]

D4029 : optimization is not available in the standard edition compiler

That's right, Visual C++ .NET Standard Edition performs absolutely NO OPTIMIZATION.

My DirectDraw went from rendering more than 100 FPS to *17* FPS. I have never been so pissed off in my life, I have just blown $100.00 for NOTHING.

What's worse, you can not buy just Visual C++ .NET Professional Edition. To get an optimizing C++ .NET compiler, you have to buy *ALL* of Visual Studio .NET (it will only put you back a cool grand).

CRAP, TOTAL CRAP, STICK WITH VISUAL C++ 6.0 STANDARD EDITION

Nevertheless, I kept trying to work with .net. I've been programming C++ for Windows for a long time. I was expecting new features to help me make better programs, but found just the opposite to be true. After doing a lot of reading and banging my head against the wall, I finally realized that the only new features .net has to offer are:

1) A giant overhead of automatic functions ("managed C++") that slow down the performance and increase the size of programs you make, but they allow sloppy Microsoft programmers to slap together messy code that doesn't crash as much. (I for one don't write programs that crash, because I can manage my own memory, thank you very much!) You are forced into proprietary language syntax, a total departure from standard C++, so that your eventual switch to Linux or whatever else will be difficult or impossible (hopes Microsoft).

2) Support for using multiple programming langauges in projects (forcing you to learn thousands of things from all the other inferior languages that you never wanted to mess with, just so you can make a simple program that shows a dialog box on the screen, for example).

3) A big push to develop "software as a service", with a plethora of difficult and cumbersome new tools that you are forced to use in order to build software that only works with an internet connection, helping Microsoft obtain world domination at last.

Because these features attempt to take me in a different direction than I want to go, I'm looking to use something else. I encourage you to do the same.

Although a number of people complain about the new IDE, it really isn't all that different. After 6 years of using 6.0 almost daily, I was worried about upgrade pains, but in one morning I was able to configure it to perform similarly to the old 6.0 interface, but with the added advantage that it does not crash every other compile. And finally, partial template specialization! No more iostream.h!

What really annoys me, however, is the fact that this, the Standard Edition, does not include the optimizing compiler. Apparently, a REAL developer would not buy this product. Cleverly, Microsoft does not offer a C++ Professional edition that would include this feature, but be less than the outrageous $1000 ($500 upgrade) for the full studio. Like I want to write in Visual Basic .NET!

Thankfully, I downloaded the evaluation copy, and didn't purchase the non-refundable software.

The first thing I noticed was that the Visual Studio IDE has been entirely rewritten.

The Visual Studio C++ class wizard is gone. Yes. Gone. You will have to spend time (and a large amount of it) to relearn how to add events, message handlers, and otherwise get up to speed with the VB-ish property window.

Granted, this version does have better ANSI standards compliance, better support for templates, and some optimizations.

If you only need to write native C++ code, pass on this product.