The Future of C++

Last week was Microsoft’s Build Conference in Redmond, Washington on the Microsoft campus. In a session of Friday, Herb Sutter, lead Visual C++ language architect at Microsoft talked about some of the things happening with C++. Sutter is also chair of the ISO C++ standards committee, so he is definitely the expert “in the know.”

One thing was clear at the Build conference, C++ is not to be discounted, nor is it to be considered a language that has be pushed to the sideline. Rather, at the Build Conference, C++ was shining bright with a number of sessions. This is because C++ has become a mainstream language for doing Windows 8 development.

Herb Sutter announced three things:

1. A new Visual C++ Compiler
2. The Standard C++ Foundation
3. The isocpp.org

Following Microsoft’s descriptions these three announcements:

A new Visual C++ compiler, featuring explicit conversion operators, raw string literals, delegation constructors and more, has been released to Community Technology Preview (CTP), and is available now for download from http://aka.ms/vc-ctp. A tour of the compiler’s features is available at http://aka.ms/vc-ctp-tour.

Standard C++ Foundation, a foundation to complement the C++ standards body by promoting the correct understanding of modern Standard C++ and facilitate its use on all compilers and platforms, has been formed by members of the Standard C++ Committee from Microsoft, Intel, Google, IBM and several other participating companies.

Introducing www.isocpp.org, which is an outlet for high-quality C++ libraries; up-to-date information about how clean, safe and fast C++ is today; and information about the Standard C++ Foundation.

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