Things I like about VC++ 6

[Zafir Anjum]

Let's hear about the things you like about Visual C++ 6.0. What are some of the less advertised changes that you liked?

[Donavan Stanley]

One thing that was really annoying before I figured out what was going on is that the Auto Completion in the editor stops working if you have some error in you code.


Now that I know why is stops I can immediatly go and fix whatever error I just introduced instead of waiting till it shows up during a build.

[Scott M.]

I thing the Intelisense feature is GREAT! I love the auto-completion, plus it's handy when you forget the parameters to a function.

[Joel Lucsy]

Edit and Continue is my biggest favorite new thing. Saves countless seconds/mintues that I don't have to quit application and set it back up just to debug some little change.

The Intellisense is good, but it takes about 10 seconds to reload its information and it seems to want to do that after every debug session. Quite annoying.

[Gordito Supreme]

Is is really that improved over VC++5, Or 4.2 for that matter, or does Microsoft just want to dip in our pockets every year?

[Donavan Stanley]

I've found it to be a good improvement. The ability to change code in the debugger and continue is a HUGE time saver for large projects, and a nice extra for small ones.


It's not a critical upgrade but if you can upgrade do it.


The biggest complaint I have is that once again thay've changed MFC without changing the DLL name!

[Sajumon Joseph]

I do agree that. The intellisense is good. But it is taking too much of time to load. Again it can find only the class member variables and functions. Why not local variables?

[John Ames]

I Just Love the resource editors. For example, I have always wanted an icon editor because when I was using VB, I could create desktop-compatible icoons, but I couldn't use them for my programs. I also like the IntelliSense features for the editor.


Sincerely,

John Ames

[Jason]

The Clean Function.

Compiler speed.(i know its documented but still worth mentioning)

Autocomplete. Functions that have to many

paremeters are annoying and i always had to

look them up to remember them.not any more.

It is Actually Helping me remember them.

[Guy Gascoigne - Piggford]

> The biggest complaint I have is that once again thay've changed MFC without changing the DLL name!


I can understand that since it bugs me a bit as well.


The problem is that MS actually have a pretty good reason for doing it.


MDC*42.dll gets loaded by a huge number of apps, if every different version of VC came with it's own set of DLLs then Windows's already large memory requirements would balloon.


In an ideal world where later DLLs were always going to be completely compatible, then this wouldn't be a problem. The reality is, that every time there is an upgrade then there are problems, followed by a service pack that should sort them all out.


This leads to two main problems, 1) shared DLL's such as the MFC ones must be installed correctly, and 2) MS must make sure that when they release 'upgraded' versions that they really are compatible with the prior versions.


1) is a problem since there are still bone-heads out there who either don't correctly check version number of files that they install, or atttempt to install private versions of system DLLs in non-standard directories. Whilst their app might work fine, they can kill another app since their old DLL version could be the one loaded in memory when an other app requiring a later version of the DLL is run, the shared image of the already loaded DLL will be loaded and things break.


2) is a more obvious problem and unfortunately crops up every time MS release a ompiler upgrade. Frankley I wouldn't release a product developed with X.0 of any MS development tool since you know that there will be at least one service pack following fairly shortly. I suppose one day they might manage not to need one but in all sympathy to the MS developers who do this, the odds really are against them. What we do with their libraries sometimes defies comprehension so to be honest I'm rather suprised that there are as few problems as there are when a new version comes out.


So yes, they could change version numbers, but I really do think that sticking with the same ones, but making sure that they work really is a better overall solution. It does mean that there are some teathing troubles when new versions arrive though.


Guy




Wander to Wyrdrune

[Pedro G. Dias]

The edit & continue is a great enhancement to the developing enviroment, plus the ease of use that the auto-complete function introduces.

However, this seems not to be working with the STL. It looks like VC6 has huge problems dealing with template functions... Could I bother anyone for a tip here?

I've installed SP3...

Pedro G. Dias
Oslo, Norway