visual studio 2008 vs 2010 Pro unmanaged code

Question

Hi, I'm a C++ programmer, I use Visual Studio 2008 Professional, only unmanaged code. I'm thinking of buying VS 2010 Pro.

I'm confused, I don't know what are differences between those two. I know that, in plus, it has tr1 included. When I started using 2008 edition I was very pleased to see f.e. unit testing support but all new features are only for managed code. The C++ debugger in 2008 is very good, better than 2003 edition one. I would't like to buy a new tool and discover that I gained nothing and lost some functionality ( because f.e. something was moved to higher version). Once upon a time I switched from very good VS6 to VS 2003.Net and imagine what, after some time I discovered that Pro has no support for code optimalization. It is wonderful how Microsoft makes money. I wouldn't like to experience something like that again.

What do you think, what can you recommended?

Answer 1

I use the professional edition of Visual Studio 2005 and it does everything I need (including code optimization).

I will move to Visual Studio 2010 in the next months for the following reasons:

• support for the new C++ standard, including lambda notations
• better multi-threading and thread-safe constructions
• easier to debug multi-threaded applications

In the past I skipped Visual Studio 2008 added few new features for unmanaged C++ developers, but this time I think there's enough new in it for us, unmanaged C++ developers, so this time I'll upgrade.

Answer 2

For native devs, 2010 has C++0x and TR1, intellisense has been completely redone (and works reliably and the speed is good), plus there's more MFC additions: Windows 7 support, designer for the ribbon (ribbon showed up in 2008 feaure pack). I also really like Navigate To and the new Call Hierarchy. I've played around editing and building large projects in 2008 and 2010 and prefer the 2010 experience.