We're not talking about just a compiler here. Nobody says "You should try CL.exe, it's really awesome at compiling!" No, they say "Visual Studio is the best C++

We're not talking about just a compiler here. Nobody says "You should try CL.exe, it's really awesome at compiling!" No, they say "Visual Studio is the best C++ IDE you'll ever use." Which is true, but not because of the compiler. And without all the Windows-specific libraries, intellisense and code analysis tools that are second-to-none can't work.