Whoa - didn't realize I had let this blog get so moldy! Apologies.

Recently I've had a similar conversation with many folks in the Microsoft consulting and field sales organizations about the value of Team System to C++/Native Win32 developers, folks not developing on .Net today.  As an ex VC++ team member, this is a subject close to my heart. The truth is there is a lot of value in the server product in terms of its source control, work item tracking and reporting.  But beyond that, we've added a host of advanced development tools that support the C++/Native Win32 developers too.  These are all in the Developer edition of the Team System family.

 The Visual Studio 2005 Team Edition for Software Developers (whoa - gotta love that name from marketing - we talk about it as TeamDev) includes:

  • A Code profiler that works well on native code, it is based on profiling technology that has been used to ship SQL server and Windows in the past.  
  • Code analysis tools for native C++ that have been widely adopted and are part of the "minimum shipping bar" for most native code coming out of Microsoft. 
  • Unit test tools that can be targeted at native code (with a little work), and that can collect coverage data on native dlls.
  • Integration of applicaiton verifier, a runtime checker that checks for common Windows programming mistakes and some memory and security issues.

We think it is a compelling offering for folks developing with native code and C++.

Even if these tools are not compelling for you to step to the TeamDev box, Visual C++ 2005 is an absolutley excellent product for those folks still developing native code.  The compiler and libraries have gone from strength to strength, and I can speak from personal experience that the editing/browsing and debugging features in this edition make it a natural upgrade for anyone using previous versions of C++ today.  And I include VC++ 6.0 in that.

Hope this helps folks understand our unwavering commitment to great tools to make every one of your software projects successful.

J