Anyone here try Visual C++ 2005 Express??

[Maleficus]

Just got it tonight, and have been playing around in it. Looks OK so far. Its a LOT different than VC 6 (yea, I use an ancient compiler). Am wondering if any of you have tried it yet.

It can be found HERE and the needed SDK HERE.

Not interested in a Linux vs. Windoze arguement, rather whether or not this is a good IDE/compiler, and any of your experiences with it.

I tried it on Fritzbot, with the speed optimizations to the max, and the bots started to have some weird path variations - they would pick what was MOSTLY the shortest path to a goal, but with a few extra, unneeded nodes thrown in, usually only 2-3. If I turned the speed optimizations off, they worked like they did in VC6: they took the shortest path.

Weird - is it my code, or VS 2005? Anyone have any experience with this?

[The Storm]

Is the Visual Studio 2005 free?

[Whistler]

VS 2005 full version is not gratis, and how the "Express" version (a stripped down version which has many things removed) can be used is restricted.

[Maleficus]

Originally Posted by Whistler

VS 2005 full version is not gratis, and how the "Express" version (a stripped down version which has many things removed) can be used is restricted.

I take it you didn't read the agreement for Visual Express on Microsoft's webpage?

STORM: the best info for your questions can be found HERE.


I'm really curious if anyone is trying this, and what they think. I'm still playing with it ATM, and haven't really decided one way or another on whether I like it or not yet.

[The Storm]

WoW it is fully legal to release software compiled with MSVC 2005 Express and even for commercial needs. Cool. I had downloaded the VC++ Express and I tryed to build the my firs Visual Program. Cool eh? 8D

[Maleficus]

Originally Posted by Whistler

and just a note: when using MS stuff, it's good to keep away from their lock-in "features", such as .Net, MFC, etc

Totally agree there. I'm talking about using this for bots/mods tho - and I hope noone here is using MFC for their bot AI!

[mirv]

I might give express a go, as I've never really used the "visual" stuff microsoft has and it's probably a good idea to be familiar with a wide range of stuff.
And while not a windows programmer, I like to keep everything cross-platform.

[Lazy]

Originally Posted by Whistler

and just a note: when using MS stuff, it's good to keep away from their lock-in "features", such as .Net, MFC, etc

[Offtopic]
Actually, I find that using a .NET language such as C# lets you prototype various things at atleast twice the development speed of doing it in a native language.
But for speed native code will always be king
[/Offtopic]

I heard about something like this a while ago, but wasn't there something in the eula saying you couldn't distribute binaries made by the compiler?

[mirv]

Just got vc++ express and have been trying it out. As an IDE it seems ok, though for a compile process I personally prefer a unix environment (note: no digging at microsoft here, it looks to be a great gui, I just prefer unix systems for development!). Took a bit of fiddling to get it working, but I suspect that's more because I jumped head-on in and just started to poke around at it.
I think I'll keep it around and in use for my current project, just to have experience with it that could be useful later.

[Whistler]

well "unix environment" doesn't actually mean "no gui"
http://www.kdevelop.org

(just a note, as people may understand it wrongly)