3 ms·

Too bad Microsoft Visual Studio refuses to get with the times and update their antiquated compiler from C89. They are now 2 standards and 25 years behind.

• ygra 12y ago
  VS has a C++ compiler, not a C compiler. There is no getting with the times. That's like advocating that the Java compiler should get with the times and start compiling C++11. C and C++ are quite different languages, despite looking superficially the same. Think of it as a DVCS history that evolved into two very different branches at one point (C89) with the occasional feature branch of C merged into C++.
  • deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
  • dottrap 12y ago
    Visual Studio is the only major C++ compiler that is inept at handling C. This is not unreasonable to expect proper C support and there is something terribly broken with Visual Studio in that they can't. Even Stroustrup has called for better compatibility with C.
    • _delirium 12y ago
      I don't see any particular reason you'd expect a C++ compiler to handle C, except the very specific part of C (largely C89) that is a proper subset of the C++ standards. They're very different languages at this point. gcc's C++ compiler doesn't handle C past C89 either; you can't use C99 features when compiling with g++. There is a separate C compiler that's part of the GNU Compiler Collection, but then there's also a Fortran and a Go compiler: gcc includes a lot of languages. MSVC++ doesn't; it's just a C++ compiler, not a Fortran or Java or C compiler. Linux norms are a bit more polyglot, so gcc is more polyglot than MSVC++ is. I personally like C, so it'd be nice if Microsoft shipped a C compiler in addition to a C++ compiler, but they've chosen not to. As a result, the "C" you can write is precisely the C that is also valid C++, and you can't use any features that aren't valid C++. If you really want there to be a language "C/C++" again that all C++ compilers can be expected to handle, you'd have to convince the C++ standards committee to add C99 or C11 features to the next C++1x.