Bad news for FOSS C++11 on Windows

By alex | Published June 3, 2012

The Big Brother has spoken; thou shalt write Metro apps.

According to ars technica:

If you want to develop desktop applications—anything that runs at the command line or on the conventional Windows desktop that remains a fully supported, integral, essential part of Windows 8—you’ll have two options: stick with the current Visual C++ 2010 Express and Visual C# 2010 Express products, or pay about $400-500 for Visual Studio 11 Professional. A second version, Visual Studio 11 Express for Web, will be able to produce HTML and JavaScript websites, and nothing more.

This is not good for open source. I doubt Microsoft will ever put forth effort for full C++11 support in VS 2010. So, this essentially means that, if you want to compile not only traditional Win32 applications but also standard C++11 code on Windows, you’ll have to pay for the professional version of Visual Studio.

Sigh.

Photo illustration by Aurich Lawson

Photo illustration by Aurich Lawson

Update (June 9, 2012):

Apparently, Microsoft has changed it’s mind. Good.

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