Re: Survey of Libraries and Visual C++

From: dwolfram_at_[hidden]
Date: 2001-01-22 21:25:42

Hi Dejan,

Thank you very much for completing the survey. We are very interested 
in the views, suggestions, and concerns of all users.

We take ISO compliance very seriously, and are actively addressing 
conformance issues.

I shall ensure that your comments are discussed by the team.

David Wolfram
Visual C++ Compiler Team

--- In boost_at_[hidden], "Dejan Jelovic" <djelovic_at_s...> wrote:
> David Wolfram wrote:
> 
> > 2. If you cannot use Visual C++ with these libraries, what are the
> > causes of this?  For example, does the library require partial
> > template specialization support? Do other issues also prevent you
> > from using the library with Visual C++?
> 
> Almost all libraries work with Visual C++. This compiler is used by
> something like 50% of the world's C++ programmers, so all vendors 
try to
> support it as much as they can.
> 
> Getting a template-heavy library to work in Visual C++, however, 
usually
> involves cutting out parts of its functionality and making all or 
most
> members public.
> 
> > 3. If you are a library developer, what workarounds or design
> > constraints were required for compatibility with Visual C++? What
> > were the most significant ones?
> 
> VC++ 6/SP4 can't compile member templates and template friends. It 
either
> produces an INTERNAL COMPILER ERROR or silently produces bad code.
> 
> > Did the workarounds or constraints have performance impacts?
> 
> No. The results of workarounds are:
> 
> 1. Significantly reduced functionality.
> 2. Public data members.
> 
> > I hope to hear from you, and shall summarize the replies if they 
are
> > numerous.
> 
> Let me use this opportunity to make a suggestion to the VC++ team:
> 
> Why don't you replace Dinkumware's STL with STLport? I'm sure Boris 
would be
> willing to license STL to you guys on very favorable terms, and 
this would
> take care of whole lot of headaches.
> 
> Two reasons why this would be a good move:
> 1. Dinkumware still has a number of bugs.
> 2. STLport has a debug mode in which it checks if one is using 
invalidated
> iterators, incompatible iterators, etc. This is extremely useful.
> 
> Dejan (www.jelovic.com)