Microsoft recently posted a video on Channel 9 and their blogs describing the upcoming work they have planned for C++. The abstract of the video tries to point out Microsoft’s unfailing devotion to C++ development:

By chance, are you among those who think that Microsoft is leaving native development in general and the C++ programming language in particular behind? You better watch this interview to Ale Contenti, Principal Development Manager with the Windows C++ team at Microsoft.

The fascinating part is that comments on the blog site and on Channel 9 are filled with example after example of how Microsoft has failed to support the C++ community. There’s virtually unanimous agreement that the best version of VC++ created was 6.0, released in 1998. Across more than 100 comments between the two sites only 1 or 2 people think that VC++ 2010 is better than the previous versions. On the upside, there are official Microsoft representatives responding to the comments and assuring the users that they are there to listen to our concerns. It will be interesting to see if anything comes of this.