VC++ 5 , 6, 2005 and Visual studio...Help, need clarity!

[pghsteelers]

I have visual studio 6, a book on visual C++ 5 and have found a really well laid out book on visual C++ 2005.

So far I have been able to read the C++ 5 book and do the studies in Visual Studio 6 without a problem.

My question is, I know there is Visual C++ 2005, but is there a visual Studio 2005?
AND
Should I be able to buy a Visual C++ 2005 book and be able to follow it working in visual C++ 6?

Can anyone sort of give me some clarity? If I am not asking the write questions let me know also please.

 

[cpjust]

Visual Studio 7 and above are very different from 5 & 6, so I'd either stick with the book you've got or download Visual C++ 2005 Express Edition (it's free).

http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/express/visualc/usingpsdk/default.aspx

 

[lionelhill]

But beware! The Express edition does not support native win32 applications except console win32. You don't have the MFC stuff so you probably won't be able to do windows GUI applications in native win32 mode in the way described in many textbooks.

 

[pghsteelers]

Thanks for the information. To clarify, Visual Studio 7 contains "Visual C++ 2005". Or is it "Visual C++ 7"?

Also, if I wanted to purchase the latest and greatest Vstudio, any site recommendations that you programmers get your development tools?

 

[cpjust]

Visual Studio is the GUI that is shared by a number of different compilers like Visual C++, Visual Basic...

I believe Visual C++ 7 == Visual C++ 2001
Visual C++ 7.1 == Visual C++ 2003
and Visual C++ 8.0 == Visual C++ 2005

 

[pghsteelers]

Thanks cpJust.

Could I learn C++ in my current Visual Studio 6 (V C++ 6) and not have to get the latest and greatest?

 

[cpjust]

Yes, that's what I used until about 6 months ago. ;-)
The STL implementation they have in 6.0 is a little broken though, so you'll probably get a ton of warnings and maybe some errors when using certain STL functions.

Make sure you have the latest Visual C++ 6.0 service pack.

 

[NullTerminator]

You can patch the VC6 stl by comparing it with the code from Dinkumware. You'll still get a ton of warnings, mostly about signed/unsigned matches and idnetifier lengths greater than 255

You can suppress them with #pragma warning(disable:4096) or something like that.

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