
Official Visual Studio Support for MinGW, Cygwin, and MSYS2 - bauta-steen
https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/vcblog/2017/07/19/using-mingw-and-cygwin-with-visual-cpp-and-open-folder/
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jstewartmobile
I recently started a project with MinGW just to _avoid_ using Visual Studio. I
have a fairly beefy machine, but VS _still_ takes forever to load.

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xvilka
So far from my experience if you use C/C++ project you can:

1\. Either use Mingw-W64, which is "closer" to WinAPI for compilation for
Windows platforms, also more actively developed

2\. Use the better build system. So far, I think Meson (+ Ninja to actually
build) is very easy and fast even for the complex projects. Moreover it works
great on both *nix and Windows systems - it can generate VS Projects, if you
need (but I recommend Ninja still - it's so much faster), and you can use not
the full Visual Studio installation, but just a Visual C++ Build Tools, with
compilers only.

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jstewartmobile
Thanks! I'll have to look into those. I'm just using GNU make at the moment.

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xvilka
They should just switch to Clang completely. MSVC is well known for lagging
behind modern C and C++ compilers. Sadly their slowness on supporting
standards created a huge population of C and C++ programmers who do not even
know about existence of some very useful features. Luckily recently they
started to improve the situation, but damage is already done, and with their
reputation I don't believe they will be on par with Clang or GCC ever.

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user5994461
MSVC is roughly as quick as GCC to adopt most of the new standards. Migration
is a pain either way because you have recompile all your software and
libraries with new settings and train your developers in the new paradigm of
the day.

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xvilka
From the link in post nearby yours one, it's clear it still misses features
which are already implemented in GCC and Clang. Also, don't forget, that
complete support for C99 landed only a few years ago, almost 15 years late. If
this is not slow, I don't know what is slow then.

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user5994461
Microsoft never planned to support C99 in the C compiler, they have been
pretty clear about that for more than 15 years.

GCC and Visual have a slightly different release cycle. GCC can move the minor
version whenever they please and they do. Microsoft only add language changes
in a new major releases, and sometimes port it back in a visual studio update
pack, which are more spaced in time.

In both cases, the new release breaks the C++ ABI so updating is not something
to be taken lightly.

There is also the debate of what "implemented" means. GCC can be obtained in
alpha and beta, so you can test new features early long before they are
finished or included in a regular release. All things considered, MSVC is
maybe one year later on the latest cool thing. Not much.

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xvilka
Well, this is then even worse - why they do C compiler at all, if they are not
going to support latest versions of standard. It's like shipping HTML4-only
web-browser today. Pretty stupid, especially with all this marketing around.
Either be in line with language development, or step down. Otherwise any
action is harmful.

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user5994461
C and C++ have nothing to do with the frenzy of web technologies.

