{"id":1019,"date":"2011-06-20T10:59:27","date_gmt":"2011-06-20T08:59:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mariusbancila.ro\/blog\/?p=1019"},"modified":"2011-06-20T12:01:24","modified_gmt":"2011-06-20T10:01:24","slug":"cpp-renaissance-at-microsoft","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mariusbancila.ro\/blog\/2011\/06\/20\/cpp-renaissance-at-microsoft\/","title":{"rendered":"C++ Renaissance at Microsoft"},"content":{"rendered":"

At the beginning of this year, Microsoft announced a “C++ renaissance”. Quoting from the description of a Channel 9<\/a> video with Craig Symonds and Mohsen Agsen:<\/p>\n

C++ is currently undergoing a renaissance. This means that, by definition, the language, compilers and compositional tooling are evolving and coalescing into a state that maximizes native developer efficiency, productivity, and creativity across hardware and software domains.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Everybody agrees that Microsoft made C++ a sort of second class citizen in the past years, while the company invested a lot in the .NET framework. Many developers have switched from native development to managed (.NET) simply because it offers a more productive environment. And the postponing of the ISO standard committee in releasing the new C++0x standard only made things worse. <\/p>\n

However, with the completion of the new C++ standard this year, Microsoft, apparently, plans to change that, and make C++ again appealing to developers. They already made C++0x features available in the VS2010 C++ compiler and are working on implementing most of the rest for Visual Studio vNext. They are also investing in tools (now labeled Application Lifecycle Management), and for instance are bringing intellisence to C++\/CLI. One of the most important areas of development is parallelism, where they are developing the PPL and Agents libraries and now the C++ AMP that they just announced. And also recently the Kinect for Windows SDK beta that provides Kinect capabilities to developers who build applications with C++ (and other laguanges). And in the mean time they hired Erich Gamma in the Visual Studio team<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But this is not enough in my opinion. Improvements in language and tools are an important part, but not everything. It is equally necessary for Microsoft to evangelize it, using any necessary means. Unless they can spread the word, the work might pass unnoticed. To be honest, I was very reluctant about this part, half an year ago, when they announced the “renaissance”. However, looking back at what they done I’d say they are on the right track. Of course, there is still a lot of work to match the “advertising” effort put into .NET. But right now C++ is getting more attention at conferences such as PDC or TechEd, or their publishing assets, such as Channel 9, MSDN or their team blogs. So I tried to assemble a collection of videos, blogs, books and code samples related to C++ or native development that they published since the announcement of the renaissance. So far it looks good, in my opinion.<\/p>\n

Channel 9
\nE2E: Herb Sutter and Erik Meijer – Perspectives on C++<\/a>
\nCraig Symonds and Mohsen Agsen: C++ Renaissance<\/a>
\nWindows 7 Taskbar Integration for MFC Applications<\/a>
\nTony Goodhew: VC++ Developer Communication – Questions and Answers<\/a>
\nTalkin’ C++ with Kate Gregory<\/a>
\nMVP Summit 2011: Meet C++ MVPs Angel, PJ, Tom and Sheng<\/a>
\nTalkin’ C++ with Alon, Marius, Bruno, and Jim<\/a>
\nTalkin’ C++ with Boris Jabes: C++ Intellisense, Game Development, and Boris Faces His Demons<\/a>
\nApplication Restart and Recovery on Windows 7 in Native Code<\/a>
\nParallel Programming for C++ Developers: Tasks and Continuations, Part 1 of 2<\/a>
\nParallel Programming for C++ Developers: Tasks and Continuations, Part 2 of 2<\/a>
\nConversation with Herb Sutter: Perspectives on Modern C++(0x\/11)<\/a>
\nFirst Look: New ALM Tools for VC++ Developers<\/a>
\nModern Native C++ Development for Maximum Productivity<\/a>
\nMohsen Agsen – C++ Today and Tomorrow<\/a>
\nHerb Sutter: C++ Questions and Answers<\/a>
\nHerb Sutter – Heterogeneous Computing and C++ AMP<\/a>
\nDaniel Moth: Blazing-fast code using GPUs and more, with C++ AMP<\/a>
\nC9 Lectures: Stephan T Lavavej – Advanced STL, 1 of n<\/a>
\nC9 Lectures: Stephan T Lavavej – Advanced STL, 2 of n<\/a>
\nC9 Lectures: Stephan T Lavavej – Advanced STL, 3 of n<\/a>
\nC9 Lectures: Stephan T Lavavej – Advanced STL, 4 of n<\/a>
\nC9 Lectures: Stephan T Lavavej – Advanced STL, 5 of n<\/a><\/p>\n

Visual C++ Team Blog
\nGrr… My VC++ Project Is Building Slower in VS2010. What Do I Do Now? (A Step by Step Guide)<\/a>
\nC++\/CLI IntelliSense in Visual Studio vNext<\/a>
\nException Boundaries: Working With Multiple Error Handling Mechanisms<\/a>
\nTroubleshooting Tips for IntelliSense Slowness<\/a>
\nBuild Related Improvement in VS2010 SP1<\/a>
\nConverting An MFC Ribbon To Designer Format<\/a>
\nEnforcing Correct Concurrent Access of Class Data<\/a><\/p>\n

Parallel Programming in Native Code Blog
\nSorting in PPL<\/a>
\nHow to pick your parallel sort?<\/a>
\nThe Concurrency Runtime and Visual C++ 2010: Lambda Expressions<\/a>
\nThe Concurrency Runtime and Visual C++ 2010: Automatic Type Deduction<\/a>
\nThe Concurrency Runtime and Visual C++ 2010: The decltype Type Specifier<\/a>
\nThe Concurrency Runtime and Visual C++ 2010: Rvalue References<\/a>
\nThe Concurrency Runtime and Visual C++ 2010: Transporting Exceptions between Threads<\/a>
\nBuilding Responsive GUI Applications with PPL Tasks<\/a><\/p>\n

MSDN Magazine
\nWriting a Debugging Tools for Windows Extension<\/a>
\nWriting a Debugging Tools for Windows Extension, Part 2: Output<\/a>
\nWriting a Debugging Tools for Windows Extension, Part 3: Clients and Callbacks<\/a>
\nAgile C++ Development and Testing with Visual Studio and TFS<\/a><\/p>\n

Books & Publications
\nParallel Programming with Microsoft Visual C++<\/a>
\nThe Visual C++ Weekly<\/a><\/p>\n

Code & Samples
\nCode samples for the Concurrency Runtime and Parallel Pattern Library in Visual Studio 2010<\/a>
\nBing Maps Trip Optimizer<\/a>
\nHilo: Developing C++ Applications for Windows 7<\/a>
\nAll-in-One Code Framework<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At the beginning of this year, Microsoft announced a “C++ renaissance”. Quoting from the description of a Channel 9 video with Craig Symonds and Mohsen Agsen: C++ is currently undergoing a renaissance. This means that, by definition, the language, compilers and compositional tooling are evolving and coalescing into a state that maximizes native developer efficiency, … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","advgb_blocks_editor_width":"","advgb_blocks_columns_visual_guide":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[7,42,52,8],"tags":[451,278,277,55],"class_list":["post-1019","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-c","category-parallel-programming","category-tools","category-windows-programming","tag-c","tag-renaissance","tag-resources","tag-visualstudio"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t