Jason, my friend, I think that you and I are a part of a dying breed I too welcome the enhancements that will be brought to C++ in VS 2005. It even sparked a recent post I made where I paid due respect to arguably the most popular language on the planet (excluding VB zealots of course dotnetjunkies.com/.../19692.aspx" rel="nofollow">dotnetjunkies.com/.../19692.aspx">dotnetjunkies.com/.../19692.aspx" rel="nofollow">dotnetjunkies.com/.../19692.aspx

Unfortunately though, I've really not found a lot of "practical" use for Managed C++ in my daily development activities, although I've flirted with the possibility of porting some of the existing codebase of apps I've written to Managed C++ as a mere exercise. Unfortunately, even with its managed extensions, C++ still has yet to find a way to make its mark in today's business applications. It seems that for the foreseeable future, C# and VB.NET will continue to dominate.

I think C++ is a victim of the "bad press" it has gotten over the years as being a terse, difficult to learn language. I do wonder whether it'll ever reach the RAD-like stature of C# and VB.NET. Where folks seem to not care whether an app is written in VB.NET or C# (by making the blanket statement that "It all compiles down to the same IL), when you say "Well, I think I'm going to write the app in C++", then folks start to throw a hissy fit.

It remains to be seen what the future of the language will be. While I'm a predominant C#/VB.NET developer, I do respect the power of C++.

I could potentially see myself using Managed C++ (or rather C++/CLI), because at work the product I develop is a large MFC/COM app, and there is no way to easily integrate C# into it (it's not COM enough to be easily callable from C#, sadly). So, here C++ makes sense - it can easily talk to both .NET and MFC/Win32 code, which is exactly what we want. Plus, as I understand it, Visual Studio 200 will even allow WinForms to be MDI children of an unmanaged MDI client, which is a great way to start getting some .NET code into the product.