Kate Gregory, Ale Contenti and Steve Teixeira: VC++ 2008 and Beyond

Posted By: Charles | Nov 26th, 2007 @ 10:38 AM

At TechED Developer 2007 I was fortunate enough to catch up with C++ expert Kate Gregory and VC++ team members Ale Contenti and Steve Teixeira for a conversation in the TechED Fish Bowl. Not surprisingly, the topic we focused on was VC++ 2008, the future of VC++ and Microsoft's commitment to innovating and evolving this powerful unmanaged platform in the context of it being an unmanaged platform (as opposed to concentrating on how C++ can interop with and, in some sense compete with, managed code, etc).

We thought it would be wise to get an external C++ expert together with Microsoft C++ People to chat about what's new, where the platform is heading, the position and relevance of C++ in an increasingly managed world and other fun topics to capture a customer's feedback on camera (no where to hide, MS product people! Smiley

).

Kate, who is a C++ MVP and fantastic speaker (her C++ sessions always rank highly among attendees) provides real world context and perspective with regard to what C++ developers want and need. The product team people, like Ale and Steve, are of course listening and acting on the feedback from C++ developers like Kate who target Windows primarily, if not entirely, in an unmanaged context.

As always, it was a pleasure to chat with Kate, Ale and Steve.

If you are a C++ developer (or interested in the future of VC++), then this interview is for you!

Enjoy,
C

Tags: C++, TechED2007

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Minh
WOOH! WOOH!

Charles wrote:

Sinofsky isn't over there [Office division] anymore, so it should be safe.

Now, what did you mean by that? Smiley

Charles
Welcome Change

Minh wrote:

Charles wrote: Sinofsky isn't over there [Office division] anymore, so it should be safe.Now, what did you mean by that?

Nothing, really. Just a smart (I need to watch my language) comment...C

JChung2006

I really don't like the "shiny objects" analogy. Try asking IBM how many of those conversions from mainframes to Microsoft software were "green fields." Now that Microsoft is the landscape, not IBM, suddenly those "green fields" are "brown fields?"

The disconnect here is why those libraries that are only available to C++ programmers are not available to .NET programmers. Maybe you should have made them available to .NET programmers? Not only are they not available, but there is no publicly available roadmap for when that might happen, if ever.

I loved the IntelliSense discussion!

CPrest

Kate, Ali, Steve and of course Charles,

I must ask, what will be the point in moving from C++ -> C#/VB .NET when the next ISO C++ standard is released ? it will have a garbage collector to improve stability (hopefully). Sure the .net framework is excellent, but I can interop already with what I want from it.

C++ at that point can become GC enabled or non GC enabled at a whim !

Again, I am a firm believer in the best tools for the solution.

herb sutters blog

Damien Watkins

Hello CPrest

Please look at Herb's more recent blog on GC and C++0x: http://herbsutter.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!2D4327CC297151BB!330.entry

Thanks
Damien
VC++

CPrest

Damien Watkins wrote:

Hello CPrest

Please look at Herb's more recent blog on GC and C++0x: http://herbsutter.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!2D4327CC297151BB!330.entry

Thanks
Damien
VC++

NOOO !!! I'm melting.... MELTING... What a world...

which brings me too..... F#, a very neat language which includes the best of all worlds ! Tongue Out

well for the time being, I see myself still promoting C++ as my main code base for upcoming projects. I especially like the new MFC updates and the TR1 addins. I still cant find a replacement (framework) for application daemons that have to run 365 days.... in a small footprint (which is a reality for some developers).

Kate mentioned about services. In todays business world, SOA is used to describe everything and anything to do with business integration systems.

However we have many C++ webservice stub generators, which make it literally 5 minutes to develop a C++ webservice or webservice client. You dont need to write up your own crazy fast XML parser ! Cool

In short, use the best tool possible...

btipling

[Troll nonsense removed]

esoteric
IExplode.exe no more

Will C++0x affect Managed C++? Will it trigger a Managed C++0x?

alecont

Hi CPrest,

You don't always need a garbage collector to get a simple memory resource management Tongue Out

For example, if you extensively use smart pointers like tr1::shared_ptr, you can safely manage memory with familiar C++ concepts (like for example determistic destruction).

With tr1::shared_ptr, you call new() once and you don't need to worry about calling delete to release the memory. The smart pointer will take care of releasing the memory when the reference count goes to 0.

tr1::shared_ptr is part of the TR1 addition to the Standard C++ Libraries. TR1 will be released on top of VC++ 2008 very soon. Check out vcblog for more info on this!

HTH, ale.