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One thing not mentioned is that Visual C++ and Visual Basic historically were separate IDEs with separate codebases. When the time came to unify them, only one

One thing not mentioned is that Visual C++ and Visual Basic historically were separate IDEs with separate codebases. When the time came to unify them, only one of them could continue on. My understanding is that Visual Basic won, and that today's Visual Studio IDE (devenv.exe, msenv.dll, etc.) is the continuation of that VB codebase. I don't actually know in which release that transition happened. But since there's a screenshot of each version in the article, presumably that transition is visually documented...

georgeecollins 1y ago
I think that is right and perhaps that is why, as I recall, Visual C went from almost unusable to a pretty good development environment between version 2 and 4. This is all (old) memory and anecdote.
ack_complete 1y ago
That might have been the transition from Visual C++/Basic 4 to 6 (I skipped 5), but the cataclysmic one was the switch from Visual Studio 6 to Visual Studio .NET, when large portions of the IDE and build system were rewritten in .NET. Visual Studio .NET (2002) was much slower and much buggier than VS6. The native debugger was glacial at conditional breakpoints and debug output, the build system took an eternity to do a dependency check, its UI visibly redrew more slowly, etc. It was so bad that Microsoft had to create a special offer for the Visual Studio .NET (2003) upgrade for only ~$30. This transition was not great for Visual Basic developers either since their language was transitioned from generating native code (VB6) to becoming dependent upon the .NET Framework (VB.NET), supported secondarily to C#.
- pjmlp 1y ago
  To this day I would consider VB 6 the epitome of COM development tooling, neither .NET, nor the UWP trainwreck were as good, and C++ tooling only MFC is worth of mention, as something putting development experience first, instead of Windows division politics. Quite awkward for what is such a key technology on Windows.
becurious 1y ago
After Visual C++ 6. They broke a lot of the C++ IDE features and they weren’t as good as the prior versions (dialog editor etc) so for a long time we preferred staying on 6. I think if we could have the newer compilers but the snappiness of that UI many developers would be happy. It’s also a product of the segmentation of the developer tools in Microsoft. The Windows team was responsible for the compiler rather than the Developer Tools team.
- philiplu 1y ago
  No, that's not really true. I was on the C++ compiler team from 1991 to 2006. When I first started, the DevTools team reported up through the Windows team, but never really felt a well-integrated part. We were never in the same building as the Windows team, for instance. I remember, probably 1992 or 1993, driving from building 4 where the compiler team lived to the Windows building (forget which one that was, maybe in the 12 to 15 block back then?) to get a copy of the Windows NT source on a hard drive. That's because I was a dev on the C++ compiler back-end team then (moved to the front-end in '95, IIRC), and compiling that source was a major test of the 32-bit compiler I was working on. Don't remember when DevTools was re-orged out from under Windows, but I'm pretty sure it was by '95, and well before VC++ 6.
  - becurious 1y ago
    Did you ever work on the cross edition that would compile Windows apps for the Mac? I think that was a version 4 fork that never got another version.
    - philiplu 1y ago
      No, there were two devs working on the 68k Mac compiler, with ~10 devs on the x86 side (though both targets shared a lot of code and differed mainly in the late codegen and peephole optimization phases). I never worked on the 16-bit code; the 32-bit and later 64-bit x86 backend was a different codebase from the 16-bit stuff.
      - 1y ago
aaronbrethorst 1y ago
If memory serves, it was Visual InterDev that won, actually. The VID IDE was the forerunner to Visual Studio.NET 2002, which was the first unified Visual Studio IDE. n.b. I worked on the Visual Studio Core team, which maintained devenv.exe, among other things, from 2003-2007'ish.
- LordN00b 1y ago
  Visual InterDev was the first IDE I ever used outside of notepad. It was bundled in with one Microsofts early webediting tools with office (97/200)....but not FrontPage. I thought I was touching the future, it was so amazing! I really don't remember much about other than the impression that it left on me.

georgeecollins 1y ago

I think that is right and perhaps that is why, as I recall, Visual C went from almost unusable to a pretty good development environment between version 2 and 4. This is all (old) memory and anecdote.

ack_complete 1y ago

That might have been the transition from Visual C++/Basic 4 to 6 (I skipped 5), but the cataclysmic one was the switch from Visual Studio 6 to Visual Studio .NET, when large portions of the IDE and build system were rewritten in .NET. Visual Studio .NET (2002) was much slower and much buggier than VS6. The native debugger was glacial at conditional breakpoints and debug output, the build system took an eternity to do a dependency check, its UI visibly redrew more slowly, etc. It was so bad that Microsoft had to create a special offer for the Visual Studio .NET (2003) upgrade for only ~$30. This transition was not great for Visual Basic developers either since their language was transitioned from generating native code (VB6) to becoming dependent upon the .NET Framework (VB.NET), supported secondarily to C#.

pjmlp 1y ago
To this day I would consider VB 6 the epitome of COM development tooling, neither .NET, nor the UWP trainwreck were as good, and C++ tooling only MFC is worth of mention, as something putting development experience first, instead of Windows division politics. Quite awkward for what is such a key technology on Windows.

becurious 1y ago

After Visual C++ 6. They broke a lot of the C++ IDE features and they weren’t as good as the prior versions (dialog editor etc) so for a long time we preferred staying on 6. I think if we could have the newer compilers but the snappiness of that UI many developers would be happy. It’s also a product of the segmentation of the developer tools in Microsoft. The Windows team was responsible for the compiler rather than the Developer Tools team.

philiplu 1y ago
No, that's not really true. I was on the C++ compiler team from 1991 to 2006. When I first started, the DevTools team reported up through the Windows team, but never really felt a well-integrated part. We were never in the same building as the Windows team, for instance. I remember, probably 1992 or 1993, driving from building 4 where the compiler team lived to the Windows building (forget which one that was, maybe in the 12 to 15 block back then?) to get a copy of the Windows NT source on a hard drive. That's because I was a dev on the C++ compiler back-end team then (moved to the front-end in '95, IIRC), and compiling that source was a major test of the 32-bit compiler I was working on. Don't remember when DevTools was re-orged out from under Windows, but I'm pretty sure it was by '95, and well before VC++ 6.
- becurious 1y ago
  Did you ever work on the cross edition that would compile Windows apps for the Mac? I think that was a version 4 fork that never got another version.
  - philiplu 1y ago
    No, there were two devs working on the 68k Mac compiler, with ~10 devs on the x86 side (though both targets shared a lot of code and differed mainly in the late codegen and peephole optimization phases). I never worked on the 16-bit code; the 32-bit and later 64-bit x86 backend was a different codebase from the 16-bit stuff.
    - 1y ago

aaronbrethorst 1y ago

If memory serves, it was Visual InterDev that won, actually. The VID IDE was the forerunner to Visual Studio.NET 2002, which was the first unified Visual Studio IDE. n.b. I worked on the Visual Studio Core team, which maintained devenv.exe, among other things, from 2003-2007'ish.

LordN00b 1y ago
Visual InterDev was the first IDE I ever used outside of notepad. It was bundled in with one Microsofts early webediting tools with office (97/200)....but not FrontPage. I thought I was touching the future, it was so amazing! I really don't remember much about other than the impression that it left on me.