> I believe he’s arguing that they were more sane/pragmatic compilers I can’t imagine they have any actual experience with Borland or Symantec’s C or C++ compi

> I believe he’s arguing that they were more sane/pragmatic compilers I can’t imagine they have any actual experience with Borland or Symantec’s C or C++ compilers, then. These things had notoriously shakey standards compliance and their own loopy implementations of certain things, along with legions of bugs – it’s not hard to find older C++ libs with long conditional compilation workarounds for Borland’s brain damage. Microsoft’s C++ compiler was for years out of step with the standard in multiple ways. Part of the reason GCC ate these compilers’ markets for lunch was the much more rigorous and reliable standards adherence, not just the lack of cost. This reads like nostalgia for an age that never was.