Thursday, 4 June 2026
C/C++ on VS Code
You can edit C/C++ code in VS Code but you need the C/C++ Extension Pack for more features.
gcc on Windows
gcc on Windows can be used from WSL2.
gcc --version
gives you the version you are using and the operating system.
gcc versions can be found here.
The C ABI
The C ABI refers to the C Application Binary Interface.
This will differ depending on platform.
Platform specific ABI specifications include:
Very important for C/C++ and assembly programmers.
C++ Value Categories
Every Win Joe knows an lvalue when they see one, but there are subtleties.
glvalue
prvalue
xvalue
Recap here (from cppreference.com).
Flags for cl.exe
cl /EHs
enable C++ EH (no SEH exceptions)
SEH (Structured Exception Handling) is a Windows-specific mechanism for handling system-level exceptions e.g. access violations or hardware faults, using __try, __except and __finally. It is not part of the C++ standard.
cl /EHc
extern "C" defaults to nothrow
Explanation: extern "C" tells the compiler to use C linkage (C-style symbol names, no name mangling), and by virtue of defaulting to "C mode" we don't have exceptions (the C ABI has no concept of exceptions).
So extern "C" functions therefore implicitly move from:
extern "C" void foo();
to:
extern "C" void foo() noexcept;
noexcept was introduced in C++11.
Wednesday, 3 June 2026
The Return of C++
The Microsoft C/C++ Optimizing Compiler is making a comeback.
Building an EXE with a decent UI is as easy as this two step process:
1. Opening "Developer Command Prompt" in Windows (hit windows key and type "Developer..")
2. cl /EHsc mySuperUI user32.lib gdi32.lib
Bye bye heavy frameworks which rely on Windows API functions anyway.
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