Ugrade compiler without Visual Studio Upgrade?

[TBass]

Hello,

While banging my head against the wall trying to write a .NET plugin
framework in VC .NET 2003, I was told that there were problems with
CLI and managed/unmanaged c++ integration in that compiler, and that I
should upgrade to the latest compiler. The people on the newsgroup
told me I should do that as soon as possible, since it was a free
download from Microsoft.

My question is this: that's all well and good, but does that integrate
into my visual studio environment, or am I back to compiling from the
command line and makefiles again? I'm so done with working in a text
editor and command line compiling. I did that with Visual Studio 6
because I couldn't stand the environment, but I'm not going back. I'm
spoiled.

Thanks!
Tom

 

[David Wilkinson]

Hello,

While banging my head against the wall trying to write a .NET plugin
framework in VC .NET 2003, I was told that there were problems with
CLI and managed/unmanaged c++ integration in that compiler, and that I
should upgrade to the latest compiler. The people on the newsgroup
told me I should do that as soon as possible, since it was a free
download from Microsoft.

My question is this: that's all well and good, but does that integrate
into my visual studio environment, or am I back to compiling from the
command line and makefiles again? I'm so done with working in a text
editor and command line compiling. I did that with Visual Studio 6
because I couldn't stand the environment, but I'm not going back. I'm
spoiled.

Tom:

What free compiler are you talking about? It is not easy to use the Visual
Studio IDE with a compiler version different from the one it came with.

Visual Studio 2008 Express is a free download and contains the latest compiler
and IDE. Like VS2005, the .NET compiler for C++ is C++/CLI, a great improvement
over the managed C++ of VS2002/2003.

I don't understand what you are saying about Visual Studio 6. Most people think
that for native code the VC6 IDE was much better than the one for VS2002 and later.