New Approach To C++ Standards

The next version of Visual C++ will be significantly more compliant with industry standards, enabling developers to better exploit open-source and commercial-source code libraries. Microsoft has also submitted a new feature of C#—generics—to a standards body, hoping to draw developers away from the Java language.

ANSI Standards Previously Downplayed

The forthcoming release of Visual Studio, code-named Everett and timed to coincide with the release of Windows .NET Server, will include an updated C++ compiler that Microsoft claims passes 98% of the test suites used to validate American National Standards Institute (ANSI) compliance. This represents a significant change in Microsoft’s policy toward C++ language standards. Microsoft’s Visual C++ is the dominant C++ compiler on Windows, due in part to the fact that it produces small, fast code but also because, with the introduction of Visual C++ in 1992, Microsoft changed the competitive landscape for C++ compilers by focusing on tools (compilers and wizards) specifically designed to speed Windows development. Since that time, Microsoft had reasoned that making the compiler integrate better with Windows technologies that developers wanted to exploit (such as COM) was more important than fully complying with the published C++ language specification (which is maintained by an ANSI/International Organization for Standardization [ISO] committee).