AprilR's WebLog

"Is there a specific reason or set of issues that prevent you from upgrading?"

You mean like not being able to rebuild dsw/dsp pairs from 7.x/8 sln/vcproj pairs ?

My answer:

1. Yes, but only some of them.

2. Faster compiling performance.

3A. We have many components written in VC6 and will need some efforts to make them to be compatible with VS.Net, but the schedule to release products is too tie to do it.

3B. Will need some time to get used to the new IDE of VS.Net, but again, product schedule is tie.

However, some of our programmers already use VS.Net 2003 to write their COM componenets.

4. At the present time, no. But might have some in the future.

I used whidbey, I cut it in half and threw it away.

I'll post it here then I'll paste it there.

A. you undermined my managed language in Java, because you guys couldn't come up with something original, so you had to go backlashing after you lost the java lawsuit.

B. You changed the managed C++ implementation more times than most people change their socks.

C. You implied and made us believe there was going to be an unmanaged interface to win64 and winFX that we could link totally without clr code, that would not invoke the clr, when in fact there isn't. WinFX totally undermines regular, traditional object code and linking.

D. I bought pricy books, a couple from MSPRESS on .NET C++ which are now all but obsolete, wasting my money. Some who's own authors came out and said they would no longer so much as comment on .NET

E. .NET sucks

F. I now have a million open source libraries to work with on linux which i can go down to the src level to debug if i have to

G. I will continue to use VC++6 to update my legacy windows apps for 20 years if i have to, changing my library paths in tools->options->directories to new SDK's,g or until windows is gone and linux and the collective knowhow of the world takes over.

/* scratch the last comment, use this one please */

The reason the VC++6 IDE is so attractive to people is that it's actually FOR C++, not managed, .NET, hoopla, derivative code.

It's for what it says it's for and it does just that. That's why it's still used.

If something new comes out, you can change your includes/libs dirs.

Why would a C++ dev want an IDE that has a million features he/she doesn't use and something that is packed with extensions they'd rather not use?

That's lunacy. Alot of C/C++ devs still use VI and emacs. C/C++ isn't about RAD and .NET or VB like IDE features. They missed the point.

They missed alot of points these last few years.

EDIT: I use gedit, when I want to write fast test code, instead of eclipse. gedit does perl, c, java, c++, php. When I compile on the command line it's nice and has an exec feature. Eclipse CDT has a wicked debugger. The VC6 debugger is super nice and fast too, and VC6 isn't bloated, it's for C/C++

1-) Yes, I'm aware and I use VC7.1 in my own projects. I LOVE ATL/WTL, and ATL 7 is much better than ATL 3. Things I known about 8.0: Profile Guided Optimizations, new managed extensions and a better project properties management. I'm almost getting away from VS.NET projects and getting back to makefiles, because when you have lot of projects in the same solution it's hard to change a property in all projects. It’s too hard to add one (just one) path to preprocessor find path without messing with the others.

I'm still use VC6 in my job because the MFC projects just don't compile using MFC7. MFC7 is more type safe, and I was not the one who made those programs… :-)

2-) PGO. I do high performance programs for stock market, performance is a big issue for me. And more conformance to C++ standard is also important, so I can use Boost and other libraries.

3-) MFC incompatibilities. I know it's not too hard to port, but who has time? :-)

4-) A build framework (MSBuild?) so I don't need to install VS.NET in a night build machine.

In a nut shell?

VB 6.0 is not so "busy".

Remember, busy people don't always have time for "busy" applications!

*Best of luck in your future offerings nontheless.

ps. I dropped out of M.S. VB line after college and now I program via LUA that is embedded inside of AutoPlay Media Studio 5 (I have the Deluxe platform, which includes AMS 5 Pro). Stop over sometime and see why it's become so populare. (Hint: It's not too "busy").

Intrigued

I work in a small team where we used both Studio 2003 and 6.0 for a mixture of projects, all c++, some libaries, some COM and some services.

To answer the questions:
1. Yes the new compiler is much better. Bettern standards compliance, better template support, better optimisation, smaller binaries produced etc. These, and that fact we hold MSDN universal licences for all the devs (so the software cost was effectively nill) are the reasons we upgraded.

2. Will probably upgrade to Studio 2005, started playing with the CTP edition and it looks cool. However the primary reason for upgrading would be Microsoft seemed to have stopped producing service packs for studio and expect people to upgrade to get the fixes. Visual studio 6.0 has a long history of service packs - I think we are now on sp6. I don't thing studio .NET or studio 2003 have had any service packs.

3. There are bits of studio 2003 that are a pain. Most of the wizards seemed to be geared towards a newbie level of knowledge rather than being expert tools, for example adding variables to controls on an MFC dialog. It used to be fairly quick process via class wizard now you add a single variable and then have to move back through all the windows that get opened for you. Other pains include sourcesafe integration (do Microsoft actually use sourcesafe?). This is a biggy - the compiler speed and not stopping after failing to compile a project in a workspace. If you have a solution containing 12 or so projects, compilation times in studio 2003 will be much slower than studio 6.0 irrespective of what compiler settings are set.

4. Putting some expert tools back in - classwizard anyone? Separate out the compilers into separate products again so speed is improved and product cost is reduced - here in the uk the retail cost for studio 2003 is something like 1500 dollars! Produce service packs for studio .NET and studio 2003.

Thanks,
John

I don't want to move to VC 2005 because i don't like C++/CLI. The second reason is that the IDE is not as powerful as VC# such as intensive.

I REALLY wish we could have environment variables or some other substitution characters inside vsproj files.

We need to check these files into source control and since there are embedded references to paths its a problem if I want to develop a single project from a larger solution. I may want to change where my local project references include/libs, even files but I dont want to have to alter the .vsproj file.

I'm using 6.0 simply because I'm in the middle of a project right now that started out with 6.0 (.NET was still very new and no one had the experience or willingness to work with it yet). When it's released, we'll consider changing over. We're not willing to overhaul the code since that would be a distraction from completing the project at this point.

Simply put, we're really familiar with the quirks of 6.0, and until we've had our first release of our current project, we won't look at newer versions of the IDE/compiler.

Also, we'd be even more interested in changing over if there were a newer IDE more dedicated to just working on and compiling C/C++. We're really not going to be looking at any CLR stuff for a very long time still.

1) Yes, yes, somewhat.

3) Where to begin? Here are some for starters:
http://tinyurl.com/6e78w
http://tinyurl.com/3rgqr
http://tinyurl.com/5ykpg
http://tinyurl.com/58ug8
http://tinyurl.com/4mpjt
http://tinyurl.com/58xd9
http://tinyurl.com/4vtgj
http://tinyurl.com/6vhwd
http://tinyurl.com/5oexo
http://tinyurl.com/4eb8u
http://tinyurl.com/5wda7
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;Q326946
http://www.thecodeproject.com/buglist/intellisense.asp
http://tinyurl.com/47vl4

http://groups-beta.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&q=vc6+vc7+compile+times
http://groups-beta.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&q=vc6+vc7+link+times
http://groups-beta.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&q=vs.net+bug
http://groups-beta.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&q=vc6+vs.net+ide

http://tinyurl.com/2yez6
http://tinyurl.com/5swfj
http://tinyurl.com/4aue9

Note: I use 7.1 for our main project at work, but not by choice. For testing tools and my own personal projects, I still use 6.
Note2: I only code in "normal" C++, I have no interest in .net.

1) Yes for 7.1, for 8.0 I know just what I've seen in Channel9 videos.

2) It's not the features that are the deciding factor regarding upgrading. See #3...

3) Yes, the specific reason is I hate the IDE. OK, that's not very specific, I'll elaborate:
* It's too gimmicky. The owner-drawn menus serve no purpose over regular menus. The gradient toolbars in Whidbey are horribly ugly, please save that stuff for WMP or Office where you need to impress normal end-users. Also the over-abundance of docking windows just gets silly after a while. I use the IDE for business, I don't want to be distracted by UI gimmicks.
* It's much slower than VC 6. For instance hitting F1 pops up that docking mini-help window *and* MSDN, which thrashes the hard drive. The AppWizards are all HTMLized now, which is useless complexity that makes them slower (what's wrong with a regular wizard?). AppWizards have unclear UI now, you have to search with the mouse to figure out what's clickable. Ctrl+Tabbing among source files will often hang the IDE for a couple of seconds while it draws stuff.
* It's hard to do simple things. In VC6 I often open a new text file, paste in something, then use the nice search features (^F and ^I). I can get a new blank text file with one click in VC6 (new text file toolbar button). Can't do that in 7.
* Marketing words (namely "solution") in the UI are confusing. When we first switched from 6 to 7.1 for our main product, it took me & another dev literally 90 minutes to figure out what the difference was between a project configuration and a solution configuration, and why there is a "Debug" config in both places that seems to do different things. Please go back to the simple workspace/project system in 6.
* The resource editor is horrible. Can't double-click for properites anymore. Outlines on controls are gone, so I can't judge where static controls are positioned. Double-clicking a property in the properties window changes the value, instead of selecting text, which I find baffling. The properties window itself is docking and the keyboard navigation within that window is hard to figure out. Since it's docking, it doesn't automatically go away when I Ctrl+Tab out of the resource editor back to source code. The VC6 properties window is 100x simpler and yet works just as well.
* Some keyboard commands are silly or gone: Ctrl+Shift+B instead of F7 to build is the worst offender. The first thing I do in 7 is switch the keyboard commands to VC6. Ctrl+Shift+G (FileGoTo) is gone, even though the feature is still in 7 (you have to use the ctx menu to get to it though). WizardBar is gone, taking three commands with it that I love: WBGoToPrevious/Next and "go to dialog editor" when viewing a C++ class that implements a dialog. F4/Shift+F4 no longer go through Find In Files results. I found the new commands for going thru Find In Files results, but they don't always work, or sometimes they go through the wrong set of results (window 1 instead of 2 or vice versa). Ctrl+I case-sensitivity is not indicated ANYWHERE, which always throws me off when Ctrl+I says it can't find text I *know* is there.

4) Wrap the compiler in a better IDE and I'll use it. VC6+WndTabs is IMO the best IDE ever.
</vent>

Whew, sorry that turned out so long. Thanks for listening. :)

Ever since VC.NET got released, I have seen many people put out a never-ending stream of expressions of utter hate against the new IDE. Very few people have problems with the new compiler. The people I know who do speak positively of the new IDE are generally the ones who haven't used VC6 and don't know any better. Pretty much anyone who has used VC6 (and even the highly similar VC5) thinks it is a huge step backward. I'm no different.

What really surprises me is that this IDE was not corrected in the design and testing stages due to customer feedback. Many of the problems mentioned by myself and other posters are relatively trivial, but severely annoying. How could this happen?

m, VS2003 can still load up files as binary. But it's quite a process now instead of dragging the file to the window.

Get this, you have to:
File->Open->File
Choose your file
Click the down arrow next to Open
Click Open With
Click Binary Editor

As Steven mentioned... people think of the VS2003 IDE as a huge step backward. I'd have to agree...

Thank you to everyone who has taken time to respond. I'm pulling all of this feedback together to share with the team. I'll also ask the team to respond if we can help you with your issues or want clarification. If you think of more, please do let us (me) know!

april

I maintain Visual C++ 6.0, 7.1 and beta 8.0 of my main project.

Why ?
1) a friend found a (very old) Dec Alpha, give me VNC access. So I can release Dec Alpha Build of my software (this need no source modification, so I can give the gift to the latest Alpha user of releasing software !)

2) Visual C++ browser is sometime more user friendly. When I need all usage of a C constant, an ALT+F12 on the constant give the answer. Browsing constant is less easy in VS 7.x. (this is less true for function).

But I work mainly on VS .Net. The first month on the new interface need effort for me to change.

A last point : when we ask using the run time in DLL (for smaller binarie), VC++ 6.0 use msvcrt.dll, which is present on all computer with IE4 or more (and on all Win98 and Win2000, or NT4 with service pack 4). So we can assume anyone have the DLL.

VC++ 7.x use a msvcrt7x, which is not often present.

Of course, I can copy the old msvcrt.lib from VC++ 6 to VS 7.x or 8.x.
On 8.x, I need add "/GS- /GR-" and disable C++ exceptions to link, but this run. Of course, this is not very ellegant.

I'll made you a confidence : sometimes, when I want a small executable which run on ALL Win32 platform (including windows 95, and even Win32s), I link to a very old crtdll.lib. A lot of things don't run perfectly on CRT (test carrefully !!!!), but for a small quick and dirty mini code, this can be a solution. I agree using crtdll.dll is very ugly.

So I suggest one option on VS 8 for msvcrt : use an option to call msvcrt.dll, and add on a static library the stuff that is not perfect or present on ALL msvcrt.dll. This need an effort to check all msvcrt.dll Microsoft build (but where a lot of classic C function, like strncpy never change !)

Yes, there is programmer who want the smaller binary possible without installing a lot of DLL.

1) yes: 7.0, 7.1. no: 8.0
2) Lack of "Microsoft Support" for VC6.
3) Yes. Code that worked fine on VC6 does not work in VC7. I am part of a team that actually just TRIES to migrate a codebase of 2 mio lines from VC6 to VC2003. It took several weeks just to get the code to compile. We found several issues that were forwarded to Microsoft. And we heard, that some bugs we found will be fixed in Whidbey but not in VS2003.

4) Imagine the amount of time and energy deverlopers spend to "upgrade" from VC6 to VS2003. In terms of effort, we could have easily migrated from VC6 to Borland or gnu or whatever. And the only reason we are about to upgrade is because we have to. Because there is no choice. Microsoft leaves us no other choice than to migrate to a new version of VC. Because there will be no updates for VC6. Because there are no bug fixes available for VS2003. At least there will be no bug fixes for the bugs my team found.

Working with VS2003 is frustrating.

1. Yes
2. The C++/CLI, secure CRT, Better template support, and the "new project from existing code" wizard.
3. The IDE of VS2005 takes over my machines resources (the latest CTP is HUGE improvement in this area).
4. Most of my gripes are with the dexplore help system. But there is one feature I miss with VC6.
VC6 was perfect for building and testing simple programs. Just drag a CPP file into the VC6 IDE, press F7, and VC6 would create the project files for you (along with the program).
VS2003/5 no longer let's you build a cpp file alone (you need to create a project, Then compile). VC6 can compile short programs far faster than VC7.x/8.

Finally, resource editing in the express edition isn't possible (if you don't want to add resource editing, how about just resource viewing?).

Busted upgrades:

1. We are using MS FORTRAN. We have problems with the runtime working when using C++ above 6.0.

2. Lack of support for old streams. We use Rouge Wave, and this has a fit with the new streams.

These two together make such a mess that upgrades were ABANDONED.

1) Concerning my part of studio, yes
2) real Pentium4 Code, .net.. we have to go this way
3) migrating code to a new compiler and beeing responsible for the rollout of all the stuff around the compiler is a real project, but anyway it has top be done
4) Yes. I am running the build lab for a rather big project, and for my build automation issues I am missing the a few simple things, which might look ridiculous to you, but they really have impact on us
o) The /all switch for devenv.com from the command line is gone in VS2003 & VS2005. Sounds trivial, but is a pain, when you really want to build all. If yo uare interested I can outline, why this is so important. ( Anyway, I have tried this to outline, via my MS support channels, but got my bug report returned as 'If you want try to raise a feature for Vs2022...'
o) .vcproj looks like xml, but is not xml compliant regarding the end-of-line handling, with respect to W3C. Why does this hurt us? We want to to bulk .vcproj changes with xslt transformations, but any .xml parser eats CR/LF and so destroys .vcproj. IF you want details, contact me (hermann.schinagl@avl.com).

What a nightmare to work with this IDE. This is by far the most buggiest software of M$ that I ever had my hand on.

I am using VS 8.0 i am not able to find class wizard. its easy to get by pressing Ctrl+w in VC++ 6.0.

 How t get its in VSS 8.0