PDC05 Day Three!
Before I get started I want to point out a couple of items for tomorrow:
1) Herb Sutter's 10:30a.m. talk about C++ futures
2) The Meet the Visual C++ team event in the Tools and Languages track lounge at 1:30p.m.
I've started to see a few C++ specific questions come up frequently, so I'm sharing them with you:
"When will you have support for TR1?"
A: The TR1 specification adds certain class and function templates to the standard library. While we haven't added this support to our implementation of the standard library in the 2005 release, we have made sure the compiler will support them.
"What is the current state of the C++/CLI specification?"
A: I'm still learning about the standardization process myself, but relative to the process the specification is getting closer and closer to done. Herb Sutter posted about this in June.
"When can we expect C++/CLI support in the in the .NET Compact Framework?"
A: This is an interesting question for a couple of reasons. In some ways, the C# and VB support there makes a lot of sense since I think there are primarily web applications that are taking advantage of the framework. At the same time, we are senstive to the fact that once again legacy applications and components are written in C++. A good place to watch for this type of news is on Ami'ts blog.
"What is the future of MFC? Will you be doing any innovation there in the future?"
A: Steve Teixeira provide a short document in June on this, but the short answer is yes, we will continue to help customers move their MFC assets forward and be winning applications and components on Windows.
"I haven't upgraded to 2005 yet - will upgrading be painful? Is it backwards compatible?"
A: While every project is different, and your results may vary :), I have to say that we have seen a lot of success in getting customer projects upgraded in less than a day. That said, there are many changes that you will want to make as you get resources, for instance moving to the more secure CRT functions. This documentation will help educate you on the changes and issues you may face in moving to 2005.
As far as the PDC today, I spent a few hours in the lounge steering people to experts, and then a few hours at the Ask the Experts session answering C++ questions. The Ask the Experts session is a catered event where there are hundreds of tables marked with various technologies and products where Microsoft staffers and other experts hang out and answer questions, or chat with customers about everything from here to there. One odd site tonight was a giant cupcake. I'm not sure what the point of it was! I suppose it did probably draw attention to the nearby dessert table, but it still seemed a bit bizarre :) What wasn't bizarre was the giant Channel 9 Guy who I of course gave a big hug and got a snapshot.
