Why are we still using this...?

Hey guys and gals. :)

At my place of work we are still using Microsoft Visual Studio 2008
Professional Edition to write C code. Now, I do not have a problem
with this in general as the IDE boots really fast and is very responsive.

Here is my gripe - and it's a big one. AFAIK, VC2008 only supports
C89. It supports bits of C99 and nothing of C11. This is not a huge
problem in the short term, but not having the ability to use
<stdbool.h> is a pain in the arse sometimes.

I am a bit nervous to approach management about changing the IDE
as the company have used it since 2009, and have no interest in
upgrading. So, my question is rather simple. Is it possible at all, to
get hold of the compiler from VS2013 and use it VS2008? Will this
be a fringe of Microsoft's laws? I mean, surely it's easier to just update the compiler than the entire IDE suite.

I guess the main reason is the money. Lets face it, the license for
VS is not exactly cheap. Our work force tops 150 employees too.
Any ideas or help greatly approved!!

O_o

The C99 support in "Visual C++" is more aimed at C++11 conformance than actually supporting the C99 standard.

If you need C99 language support, I don't think any version of "Visual C++" is going to do you any good.

If you only need C99 library support, you can do most with a recent version. I'd probably just try to talk management into using, with a macro over "stdbool.h" or "project/stdbool.h" as appropriate, an open source implementation with a permissive license.

Soma

How about switching over to clang or gcc? Even the latest versions of VS don't support C11, and likely never will until they're incorporated into the C++ standard. Clang can even be integrated into VS.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by swgh

Is it possible at all, to
get hold of the compiler from VS2013 and use it VS2008? Will this
be a fringe of Microsoft's laws? I mean, surely it's easier to just update the compiler than the entire IDE suite.

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I know you can get later versions of the compiler back end at no additional cost. I don't know if VS2008 supports them though. 2010 might be the first version to support that.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by swgh

I guess the main reason is the money. Lets face it, the license for
VS is not exactly cheap. Our work force tops 150 employees too.
Any ideas or help greatly approved!!

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150 VS licenses, or 150 employees total? My company has close to 150 employees, and we find a way to get our 6 developers the new version of Visual Studio every couple of years.

I don't think you can get later versions of the backend at no additional cost. How would that work? You would need to get a newer version of VS, but that would cost money. The backends are tied to the specific shipping versions of VS.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Elysia

The backends are tied to the specific shipping versions of VS.

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I've seen Microsoft blog posts about installing additional versions of the compiler backend, and selecting them from the project properties window. Can't seem to find the post at the moment. It's possible that my info is out of date, but at least as recently as 2013, you could download what they called the "Platform SDK," which included the C++ compiler that normally came bundled with VS2013.

Thanks for the replies guys :)

Elkvis -> It's 150 Employees, so yeah it's basically myself and twelve other coders.

What happened is I spoke to the senior HR and PM and suggested switching to GCC. That brought
up the entire debate about which version of GCC supports C11 the best, erm well that went on for
a bit ;)

Anyway, after sorting some costing out, by the start of next year we should be ditching VS2008 and using
the GCC compiler along with the code::blocks IDE. Somebody suggested Orwell Dev-C++ but to be fair
yes it is maintained but not as much as code::blocks is. Last thing I want is to be writing a large application
and suddenly the IDE bombs out with "we appear to have a problem..." Ahh.. the days of 4.992

Quote:

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Originally Posted by swgh

What happened is I spoke to the senior HR and PM and suggested switching to GCC. That brought
up the entire debate about which version of GCC supports C11 the best, erm well that went on for
a bit ;)

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Well, that should be easy to answer, I think. The latest version! Since it's free, I don't see why you wouldn't use (and keep using) the latest version.

Quote:

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Anyway, after sorting some costing out, by the start of next year we should be ditching VS2008 and using
the GCC compiler along with the code::blocks IDE. Somebody suggested Orwell Dev-C++ but to be fair
yes it is maintained but not as much as code::blocks is. Last thing I want is to be writing a large application
and suddenly the IDE bombs out with "we appear to have a problem..." Ahh.. the days of 4.992

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Great! Hopefully that should introduce some boost in productivity!