The strange vagueness in stating they are "close" means the Microsoft C++ compiler team know they still miss shamefully important pieces, with the necessary con

The strange vagueness in stating they are "close" means the Microsoft C++ compiler team know they still miss shamefully important pieces, with the necessary consequence that optimistic users expecting C++17 will be bitten by unexpected significant compiler bugs. They should be more open. I respect the progress Microsoft is making, both in the long term (since the dark ages in which they didn't care about standards) and in the short term (a genuine C++17 implementation effort), but their progress is still slower than the competition.