Microsoft Corp last week was getting ready to send a major upgrade of Visual C++ to beta test, hoping to get the first test version of what will be Visual C++ 5.0 out the door before the end of the month. Microsoft hopes to have the new version, code named Orion, ready for market by the end of March. Orion is not being positioned as a Java-killer, but it is supposed to deal with a lot of C++ shortcomings that have helped Java build momentum as the language-of-choice for many Internet developers. Orion will be able to use the ActiveX Template Library to build thin applications. Visual C++ has previously been limited to using Microsoft Foundation Class libraries, which developers complain create applications that are too fat for Internet use. Orion will turn out smaller executable files and provide a linker reducing the amount of code needed. An optimizing compiler will hopefully shrink the total size of Visual C++ applications by about 10%. Once Visual C++ 5.0 is ready it’s expected to show up as a standalone product and part of a development suite Microsoft is rumored to be developing under the code name Boston.
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