Comment by flohofwoe
18 hours ago
Funny because for a long time the Microsoft MSVC team explicitly recommended compiling C code with a C++ compiler because they couldn't be arsed to update their C frontend for over two decades (which thankfully has changed now) ;)
https://herbsutter.com/2012/05/03/reader-qa-what-about-vc-an...
That thing always baffled me, this huge company building a professional IDE couldn't figure out how to ship updates to the C compiler.
> it is hard to say no to you, and I’m sorry to say it. But we have to choose a focus, and our focus is to implement (the standard) and innovate (with extensions like everyone but which we also contribute for potential standardization) in C++.
I mean, yeah if it came from a two member team at a startup, sure focus on C++, understandably. But Microsoft, what happened to "Developers! Developers! Developers!"?
It's not baffling, it's remarkably consistent. They implemented Java as J++ and made their version incompatible in various ways with the standard so it was harder to port your code away from J++ (and later J#). They implemented things in the CSS spec almost exactly opposite the specification to lock people into IE (the dominant browser, if you have to make your site work with 2+ incompatible systems which will you focus on?). Not supporting C effectively with their tools pushed developers towards their C++ implementation, creating more lock-in opportunities.
It was on purpose, Microsoft was done with C, the official message was to move on to C++.
The change of heart was the new management, and the whole Microsoft <3 FOSS.
> It was on purpose, Microsoft was done with C
Indeed, and yet here we are with C23
> The change of heart was the new management, and the whole Microsoft <3 FOSS.
Yeah, agree. To me the turning point was when they created WSL.
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Funnily enough, the intellisense parser does support C syntax because it's using a commercial frontend by edison under the hood. MSVC's frontend doesn't.
Yeah, 12 years ago, when governments couldn't care less about nation state cyberattacks, and Microsoft was yet to be called by the Congress to testify on their failures.