Microsoft just announced that their STL included with Visual C++ is now C++20 feature complete. This is the case for:
All C++20 features are now available under the /std:c++20 compiler flag.
You can read the full announcement here.
The recently released Preview 2 of Microsoft Visual Studio 2019 contains quite a few improvements and new features.
Preview 2 includes a Lifetime Profile Checker that implements the Lifetime Profile as published by the C++ Core Guidelines. It includes:
This feature is not enabled by default, but you can enable it in the code analysis ruleset for your project. An example of what this checker can catch is the following in which we have a dangling string_view:
std::string get_string();
void dangling_string_view()
{
std::string_view sv = get_string();
auto c = sv.at(0);
}
You can read more about this feature here.
New features include:
New and improved optimizations include:
Preview 2 also improves build throughput. Link times might be improved up to 2x.
The new linker will now report potentially matched symbol(s) for unresolved symbols, like:
main.obj : error LNK2019: unresolved external symbol _foo referenced in function _main
Hint on symbols that are defined and could potentially match:
"int __cdecl foo(int)" (?foo@@YAHH@Z)
"bool __cdecl foo(double)" (?foo@@YA_NN@Z)
@foo@0
foo@@4
main.exe : fatal error LNK1120: 1 unresolved externals
More details can be found on this blog post.
The following updates for Template IntelliSense are included with Preview 2:
Read all about it on this blog post.
Preview 2 comes with the following new quick fixes and code navigation improvements:
Read more about this new features here.
Preview 2 includes new code analysis checks:
Read more about them here.
Code analysis now runs automatically in the background, and warnings display as green squiggles in-editor. Analysis re-runs every time you open a file in the editor and when you save your changes.
Squiggles are improved. Squiggles are now only displayed underneath the code segment that is relevant to the warning.
Read more here.
Microsoft has release version 15.9 of Visual Studio 2017. This update includes a few interesting new additions for C++ developers. From their VC++ release notes:
You can find the full release notes here.
Microsoft has released Visual Studio 2017.
They have also released a couple of articles explaining the changes related to Visual C++:
More general information about what’s new in VS2017 can be found here.
On September 22th, 2016 I gave a presentation titled “Mobile App Development for Multiple Platforms with Visual C++, 2016” at CppCon 2016.
The slides of my presentation can be downloaded below:
Visual Studio 2015 Update 2, released on March 30 2016, brought a couple of performance improvements.
The full official release notes can be found here.
The C++ Standard Library in the Visual Studio 2015 Update 2 release is C++11, C++14, and C++17-so-far feature complete. This includes all features from C++17 that are currently in that standard proposal: SFINAE-friendly result_of, improvements to pair and tuple, shared_mutex, removal of deprecated iostreams aliases, variable templates for type traits (is_same_v, …), as_const(), logical operator type traits (conjunction, …), owner_less<>, variadic lock_guard, and additions to <chrono>: floor(), ceil(), round(), and abs().
More information, including a detailed list can be found here.
The Windows 10 Developer Day brought together more than 300 developers across 3 locations in Belgium (Brussels, Hasselt and Gent). The sessions in Hasselt were recorded and are now available online.
Dive into the benefits that come with the Universal Windows Platform and learn how to have your app run on any device regardless of screen size.
Be amazed about the ease of making the web work for you on Windows 10. Get to know the advantages of building a cloud-connected, mobile experience and see for yourself what the future computing looks like!
Watch the videos on Channel 9.
On September 22th, 2015 together with Ankit Asthana from Microsoft I gave a presentation titled “Cross-Platform Mobile App Development with Visual C++ 2015” at CppCon 2015.
The slides of our presentation can be downloaded below:
The VC++2015 Release Candidate includes an extremely long overdue new feature for MFC: Dynamic Dialogs.
It’s now finally possible to define how controls should move and resize when an MFC dialog is resized. The behavior can be configured with the dialog resource editor.
Artur Laksberg has written an article about the new feature.
Stephan T. Lavavej has published an updated table detailing the C++11/14/17 support in VC++ 2015 RC.
Already quite a few C++17 features are included.
Ankit Asthana published an interesting blog post on the Visual C++ Team Blog about Speeding up the Incremental Developer Build Scenario.
The developer incremental scenario is one where a developer changes a single or multiple source files (while fixing bugs) and builds. This scenario for Visual C++ is roughly equivalent to the amount of time spent in linking the executable (.dll or .exe).
The blog post discusses the following new features:
It’s definitely worth reading his post, it includes some impressive benchmarks 🙂
Visual C++ 2015 includes a general purpose solution to implement resumable functions based on the concept of coroutines. A coroutine is a generalized routine entity which supports operations like suspend and resume in addition to the traditional invoke and return operations.
These resumable functions are being proposed for inclusion in ISO C++17.
For the VC++ 2015 Preview, the feature only works for 64-bit targets, and requires adding the /await switch to your compiler command-line.
Such resumable functions have several use cases:
Here is a simple example demonstrating an asynchronous operation:
#include <future>
#include <thread>
#include <experimental\resumable>
using namespace std;
using namespace std::chrono;
// this could be some long running computation or I/O
future<int> calculate_the_answer()
{
return async([] {
this_thread::sleep_for(1s); return 42;
});
}
// Here is a resumable function
future<void> coro() {
printf("Started waiting... \n");
auto result = __await calculate_the_answer();
printf("got %d. \n", result);
}
int _tmain(int argc, _TCHAR* argv[])
{
coro().get();
}
The important line here is line 17. The function calculate_the_answer() is an asynchronous function which immediately returns by returning a future
Read the full explanation here.
Microsoft has released a preview of Visual Studio 2015.
There are a lot of C++ changes included in this preview. You can read the full release notes here.
Here is a short version quoted from a blog post from Eric Battalio from Microsoft:
See Eric’s blog post here for a couple more links.
Download the Visual Studio 2015 Preview.
Microsoft announced the availability of Visual Studio Community 2013.
This Community edition replaces the Express editions.
You no longer have to decide which Express edition to use because the Community edition supports all kinds of development, web, mobile, desktop, …
Visual Studio Community 2013 includes all the functionality of Visual Studio Professional 2013.
Unlike the Express editions, the Community edition supports extensions.
Of course there are some restrictions on who can use this edition, but not many:
Here’s how individual developers can use Visual Studio Community:
Here’s how Visual Studio Community can be used in organizations:
Download and get more information from here.
Stephan T. Lavavej, aka STL, has written a very detailed blog post describing new C++14 STL features, implemented fixes, and breaking changes in Visual Studio 14 CTP1. Read it here.
One notable breaking change is that containers cannot have const elements:
The Standard has always forbidden containers of const elements (e.g. vector
, set ). (C++98/03’s prohibition was crystal clear: elements must be Assignable, which const T isn’t. C++11/14’s prohibition is obscurely hidden, but it’s there.) Previously, VC accepted such containers due to non-Standard machinery in std::allocator. We’ve removed that machinery, so such containers now fail to compile.
Microsoft has released Visual Studio “14” CTP. You can read the announcement on Soma’s blog. Visual Studio “14” will most likely be available sometime in 2015.
Note: This is a CTP release, thus it should be installed in a test environment, such as a VM or a clean machine. Do not install on a machine with another version of Visual Studio installed.
Specifically for C++, there are quite a few improvements, such as:
Read Eric’s blog for a bit more details on those improvements.
Today I got a mail from Microsoft saying that my MVP (Most Valuable Professional) award for Visual C++ is extended for 2014 🙂
Congratulations! We are pleased to present you with the 2014 Microsoft® MVP Award! This award is given to exceptional technical community leaders who actively share their high quality, real world expertise with others. We appreciate your outstanding contributions in Visual C++ technical communities during the past year.
On Monday March 17th, 2014 I gave a “What’s new in Visual C++ 2013” presentation for the Belgian C++ Users Group (BeC++).
This time there were around 55 attendees for the BeC++ meeting, quite a success 🙂
The slides of my presentation can be downloaded below:
Peter Van Weert gave a presentation “What’s new in C++14”.
His slides can be downloaded from the official BeC++ blog.
There are also a couple of pictures from the event on the BeC++ blog.
And I already started planning the next Belgian C++ Users Group meeting. It will be on May 8th, 2014. Details will follow soon.
Today I gave an introduction presentation on C++ AMP for software engineers and team leads of KLA Tencor / ICOS. The presentation was almost the same as I gave on Meeting C++ in November 2013.
The slides can be downloaded below:
Marc Gregoire
marc.gregoire@nuonsoft.com
Software Project Manager
Software Architect
Scrum Master
Microsoft MVP VC++
Founder of the Belgian C++ Users Group (BeCPP).
