Microsoft MSC ver 4.0

[John P. Nelson]

>Has anybody heard anything about the new Microsoft 'C' Compiler version 4.0?
>I would consider upgrading but at $150 for the upgrade I would like a little
>more information.

I received my upgrade form a couple of days ago along with their advertising
blurb.  I don't have it in front of me, so your milage may vary.  The new
version is reported to contain the following new features:

    1. Screen oriented debugger.  I would have liked to see more real
       information about this, the blurb in the mailing was a bit sketchy.
       Presumably this supercedes SYMDEB.  I hope you can examine stack
       variables with this one!

    2. Two new memory models:  Compact (large data, small code) and Huge
       (true 32 bit pointers, objects larger than 64K).  The Huge model
       corresponds to the Lattice Large model without the -s? option.
       Still no .COM model.

    3. Startup source code supplied.  Apparently a lot of people complained
       that MS C was a bit hard to customize.  No library source code yet,
       though.

    4. New mixed model programming keyword: "Huge" (allows Huge model
       pointers in other memory model programs).
    
    5. "More ANSI extensions" whatever that means.  They now reserve the
       keywords "volatile" and "const" keywords, without implementing them.
       The DID implement "signed".  There may be some of the new ANSI
       preprocesser stuff, I can't remember.
    
    6. A fair number of new library functions.  The ones that caught my eye
       were the vprintf family.  I think they may have implemented all the
       ANSI mandated functions, but I didn't check.
 
    7. I think that the function prototypes still perform a "lint check"
       rather than a type conversion, as mandated by ANSI, but again, I
       can't really recall.

All in all, it looks pretty good.  I was pretty happy with version 3.0;
I thought that it was a fairly high-quality product when it first came
out.  I sent my form in the day I received it, but they said to expect a
6 to 8 week delivery time.   :-(    If I get mine first, I'll post a review.