MSFT Visual C++ products for external functions

[mike]

On August 24, 2004 Ventana Systems sent the following e-mail about
MSFT C++ compilers;

Microsoft Visual C++ Toolkit 2003
---------------------------------
Microsoft has chosen to make its C++ compiler engine available for free.
If you are using Vensim DSS and want to speed up your simulations by
compiling this is a good way to do it. You can go to
http://msdn.microsoft.com/visualc and look for the Visual C++ Toolkit
for more details. Microsoft has not indicated how long they will make
this avaialble for free, it may be only for a limited time. The
supporting files that ship with version 5.4a make it easy to use this
compiler. Creating external functions with this compiler might work,
but would take some work.


My question is which of the MSFT products below will best enable development
of Visual C++ external functions for Vensim version 5.4c ?
Will either do just as well ?

Thank you

Regards,

Mike Reilly




Visual C++ .NET 2003 Standard
________________________________________

Microsoft Visual C++ .NET 2003 Standard is Microsoft's most powerful tool for creating Microsoft Windows-based applications, dynamic Web applications, and XML Web services using the C++ development language.

Version Upgrade NA
Estimated Price* $109 US






Visual Studio .NET 2003 Professional Special Edition
________________________________________

Visual Studio .NET 2003 Professional Special Edition enables developers to quickly create data-driven Web applications using familiar Visual Basic techniques and dozens of reusable, browser-independent Web controls. Web applications built using Visual Studio .NET and ASP.NET benefit from improved performance, reliability, security, and scalability.

Version Upgrade*
$549 US
Estimated Retail Price* $799 US

[bob@vensim.com]

Hi Mike,

The standard version does not support code optimization. That is probably not as important for external functions as it wold be for compiled simulations. So unless you are planning on writing very complex and compute intensive functions it should work just fine.

(Having said that I have to admit I have never actually seen the standard version, so I am not completely positive.)

Bob Eberlein

[mike]

Thank you Bob.
Appreciate the guidance.

Mike