C++ Team Blog
The latest in C++, Visual Studio, VS Code, and vcpkg from the MSFT C++ team
Latest posts
Visual Studio 2015 – Share Your Thoughts
Are you using Visual Studio 2015 for cross-platform development? Take our survey!In CTP 6, we've added or updated the following: We would love to get your thoughts on these and other features for cross-platform / native development in Visual Studio 2015. The survey doesn't take too long and provides an opportunity to engage with members of the Visual C++ team to discuss your development experience and unique challenges!Thanks for your continued support!
Going Native: Build Throughput, PCH Tool
The Visual C++ team is committed to improving your build throughput in VS2015, and we’re not just talking about shaving-off-a-few-seconds-chump-change. Check out our latest GoingNative video for a slew of tools to help you get those gains, and in particular, be sure to try out our Precompiled Header (PCH) Tool on VS Gallery and let us know how it works out for you!A properly configured Precompiled Header (PCH) can potentially speed up your build time by 10x or more, but not everyone is familiar with generating a PCH and/or setting up their project to make use of it. The PCH Tool helps analyze your project&r...
Introducing the Universal CRT
In June of last year we published a pair of articles discussing the major changes that we had made to the Visual C++ C Runtime (CRT) for Visual Studio 2015. In "The Great C Runtime (CRT) Refactoring" we explained the major architectural changes that we had made to the CRT. In "C Runtime (CRT) Features, Fixes, and Breaking Changes in Visual Studio 14 CTP1" we enumerated all of the notable features we'd implemented and behavioral changes that we'd made. We've received a lot of feedback from you, our customers, over the months since we wrote those articles and released the first Community Technology Preview (CTP)...
C/C++ Code analysis in VS2015
By Joe Morris & Jim Springfield (MSFT) This blog provides answers to the following 2 questions. Before we get started, let’s be on the same page on some terminology. Code analysis: C/C++ code analysis is also known as /analyze. It is sometimes referred to as “static code analysis” or simply “code analysis”. They all mean the same. Front-end and back-end compiler: Microsoft’s C/C++ compiler consists of two pieces (a front-end and a back-end). The front-end reads in source code, lexes, parses, does semantic analysis and emits the IL. The back-end...
Developing Xamarin Android Native Applications
Xamarin has quickly become a popular way for creating cross-platform mobile applications promoting true code-reuse while allowing developers to create native* (native here means natural to the platform) user interfaces, providing them access to full spectrum of functionality exposed by the underlying platform/device and guaranteeing native* performance by allowing applications to leverage platform specific hardware acceleration. To add on, Xamarin integrates fully into Visual Studio and allows development of iOS, Android and Windows applications alike. So what does this mean for our true native (C/C++) developer...
Find Your Favorite Library for C++ in NuGet
Many of you may know that NuGet is the “go-to” library repository for .NET development, but what about using it for C++? The answer here may surprise you as many of the top open source C++ libraries are actually sitting in the NuGet gallery. For those who haven’t used NuGet before, NuGet is the package manager system for the Microsoft development platform. Adding library packages from the NuGet gallery to your Visual Studio project is as easy as clicking one installation button. The gallery started with .NET libraries and now we are working on getting more C++ libraries into its ecosystem. Let...
Native Memory Diagnostics in CTP 5
The Visual Studio Memory Usage tool is now selected by default in VS2015 CTP 5. When you first debug a native app in CTP 5, the Diagnostic Tools window will launch and show both the Memory Usage and CPU Usage tools since they are both checked by default. For more information on the Diagnostic Tools window and other tools, please consult this blog post by Dan Taylor. By clicking on Select Tools you can enable/disable these tools. For the purposes of this blog post, I have already selected only the memory tool to simplify the screenshots. Notice that in the bottom pane there is an...
Code Analysis Survey
The Visual C++ team loves surveys, but maybe not for the reasons you think.Surveys are often used to collect data that is sliced, diced, aggregated and munged to provide objective audience insights. We use some of our surveys for this purpose -- how common is the use of some feature, scenario, or inhibition to upgrade to a newer version of Visual Studio. Good stuff.We love surveys because they let us reach out and talk to you, real developers building applications for a variety of systems, hardware, and circumstances. These interviews provide subjective insights -- which code editors work best for embedded develo...
IncrediBuild and the Visual Studio 2015 Preview
As a reader of this blog, you already know that Visual Studio 2015 Preview is available and has been for a few months. Many of you have downloaded the preview and tried out the many new productivity, performance, portability and cross-platform features. We appreciate your feedback (and bug reports)!But what you might not know is that IncrediBuild, a Visual Studio Integration Partner, now supports Visual Studio 2015 and the Visual Studio 2013 Community Edition. Highlights include: For more information and links to download a free trial version, visit IncrediBuild.If you have feedback or other questions, feel fr...