Visual Studio 2012 and C++, MFC

[ahmd]

A bit off-topic, but I noticed an interesting statement on the page linked to by superbonzo (here):
Finally!

Oh, I hope they fix that IntelliSense, or at least make it "as good" as it is for C# in VS2010.


@superbonzo: Obviously they will introduce new APIs that make sense for the tiled interface. The issue here is a distinction between a mobile and a desktop OS. In case of iOS they made it pretty clear that that is a mobile operating system that behaves in a totally different way than a desktop OS (which, unfortunately now is slowly pushed into a mobile realm as well, but is still not as "mobile-looking" as Windows RT/8.)

In a mobile OS limited multitasking, time and resources allotment, battery savings, etc. is quite appropriate. Also UI for a mobile OS is a totally different beast due to the screen size limitations. But most of the above make no sense to be introduced to a desktop OS. For instance, a full screen app with giant buttons looks ridiculous on my 30-inch display.

So, if Windows RT is designed as a mobile OS (something to run only on phones and small tablets) then, yes, all that tiled interface API limitations make perfect sense. But, what I'm afraid will happen, is that users on Windows RT will begin to expect full desktop app performance due to its identical look to the Windows 8 Pro or Enterprise, which in turn will flood developers' tech support lines with questions like this, "Why can't I run your program on my new Windows 8?" Note that for an end-user there will be no distinction between Windows RT or Windows 8. Both will look the same for them.

So obviously, since those OS's are totally different beasts on the inside, we, developers, won't be able implement most of the features that any C++ developer is familiar with -- stuff like "real" multithreading, services, IPC, etc. And if all you're doing is a picture viewer, then you're in good shape. Anything more complex will make it incompatible with Windows RT... and that is not what people would expect from Windows. So that is what's disturbing to me...

But I'm deviating from the original subject now... So concerning VS 2012, it sounds like there're some improvements.