{"slug": "visual-cplusplus-6", "name": "Visual C++ 6", "category": "editors", "category_name": "Editors and IDEs", "description": "", "recommenders": 5, "commenters": 10, "warners": 1, "score": 4.546, "rising": -1.64, "first": "2026-02-08", "latest": "2026-08-16", "why": "VC++ 6.0 would load, build the project, and have it ready to run", "why_is_quote": true, "has_verdict": false, "sentiment": {"recommend": 5, "neutral": 4, "compare": 0, "warn": 1}, "spark": [0, 0, 0, 1, 0, 1, 3, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0], "listed": true, "loved": [], "caveat": "", "short_quote": "VC++ 6.0 would load, build the project, and have it ready to run", "kind": "", "icon": false, "domain": null, "github_repo": null, "official_url": "", "pricing": "", "aliases": ["Visual C++ 6", "Visual C++ 6.0"], "verdict": null, "praise": [{"label": "", "summary": "", "quotes": [{"id": 773634752, "item_id": 48352172, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48352172", "by": "qingcharles", "date": "2026-05-31", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "The serial cable debugger feature was a godsend.", "excerpt": "I thought we used VC++ 6 to write Abomination[1] but I guess it was VC++ 4 as the dates don't align. The serial cable debugger feature was a godsend. Had the game running on one PC and stepping through it on the other. VSS would kill us, though. Crazy that I'm still using the same IDE in 2026. [1] https://youtu.be/ESGevBO4KKA?t=682", "context": "", "use_case": "game development", "switched_from": "", "story": "Let's compile Quake like it's 1997"}, {"id": 773137104, "item_id": 48321069, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48321069", "by": "haspok", "date": "2026-05-29", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "VC++ was great.", "excerpt": "I used VS6 professionally and for private business around 2000-2004, and it was still going strong then. VC++ was great. One thing though that I still have nightmares about is Visual SourceSafe, Microsoft's idea of a source control system for small teams. It was not only terrible to use (and slow), but we regularly lost data in it due to concurrency issues.", "context": "", "use_case": "professional C++ development", "switched_from": "", "story": "Let's compile Quake like it's 1997"}, {"id": 762638368, "item_id": 47664898, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47664898", "by": "anarticle", "date": "2026-04-06", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Right about VC6 was the sweet spot imo", "excerpt": "Programming Windows is THE authoritative source on Win32 programming: https://www.charlespetzold.com/books.html It is a fantastic book, I learned everything I know on Win32 from it. Wrote real time scientific software in windows for ~10y! We did it all, external hardware control, custom UIs, etc. Thanks Ryan Geiss for your timing info. Right about VC6 was the sweet spot imo, C/C++ with lightning fast UI for docs and ", "context": "", "use_case": "C/C++ desktop development", "switched_from": "", "story": "Microsoft Hasn't Had a Coherent GUI Strategy Since Petzold"}, {"id": 752516450, "item_id": 47032278, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47032278", "by": "pseudohadamard", "date": "2026-02-16", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "VC++ 6.0 would load, build the project, and have it ready to run", "excerpt": "I worked with VC++ 6.0 up until Windows 11 when it really, really wouldn't run any more, then switched to VS 2008. The code is portable across multiple systems so it didn't really matter which version of VS it's developed with, and VC++ 6.0 would load, build the project, and have it ready to run while VS 2022 was still struggling through its startup process. VS 2008 is starting to show the elephantine... no, continen", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "I Fixed Windows Native Development"}]}], "caveats": [{"label": "", "summary": "", "quotes": [{"id": 789181696, "item_id": 49323856, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49323856", "by": "ack_complete", "date": "2026-08-16", "stance": "warn", "quote": "Visual C++ 6, for instance, would emit code that was 2/3rds register-to-register moves", "excerpt": "I did extensive MMX and SSE2 optimization of audio and video codecs in the 2000s. MMX made a large difference, but it was a pain. MMX optimization practically required assembly language. The Pentium MMX was an in-order dual pipe CPU, and while compilers supported MMX intrinsics, their code generation for it was abysmal. Visual C++ 6, for instance, would emit code that was 2/3rds register-to-register moves, with value", "context": "optimized audio/video codecs in the 2000s", "use_case": "MMX intrinsics compilation", "switched_from": "", "story": "SIMD in the 90s: Programming Intel's Pentium MMX"}]}], "who": [], "tags": [], "use_cases": ["mmx intrinsics compilation", "game development", "professional c++ development", "building commercial software", "ide and debugger", "c/c++ desktop development"], "compared": [], "makers": [], "threads": [{"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48318522", "title": "Let's compile Quake like it's 1997", "mentions": 5}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46936274", "title": "Let's compile Quake like it's 1997", "mentions": 2}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49285096", "title": "SIMD in the 90s: Programming Intel's Pentium MMX", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47651703", "title": "Microsoft Hasn't Had a Coherent GUI Strategy Since Petzold", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47022891", "title": "I Fixed Windows Native Development", "mentions": 1}], "sentiment_by_month": {"2025-11": {}, "2025-12": {}, "2026-01": {}, "2026-02": {"neutral": 2, "recommend": 1}, "2026-03": {}, "2026-04": {"recommend": 1}, "2026-05": {"recommend": 3, "neutral": 2}, "2026-06": {}, "2026-07": {}, "2026-08": {"warn": 1}, "2026-09": {}, "2026-10": {}}, "quotes": [{"id": 789181696, "item_id": 49323856, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49323856", "by": "ack_complete", "date": "2026-08-16", "stance": "warn", "quote": "Visual C++ 6, for instance, would emit code that was 2/3rds register-to-register moves", "excerpt": "I did extensive MMX and SSE2 optimization of audio and video codecs in the 2000s. MMX made a large difference, but it was a pain. MMX optimization practically required assembly language. The Pentium MMX was an in-order dual pipe CPU, and while compilers supported MMX intrinsics, their code generation for it was abysmal. Visual C++ 6, for instance, would emit code that was 2/3rds register-to-register moves, with value", "context": "optimized audio/video codecs in the 2000s", "use_case": "MMX intrinsics compilation", "switched_from": "", "story": "SIMD in the 90s: Programming Intel's Pentium MMX"}, {"id": 773634752, "item_id": 48352172, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48352172", "by": "qingcharles", "date": "2026-05-31", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "The serial cable debugger feature was a godsend.", "excerpt": "I thought we used VC++ 6 to write Abomination[1] but I guess it was VC++ 4 as the dates don't align. The serial cable debugger feature was a godsend. Had the game running on one PC and stepping through it on the other. VSS would kill us, though. Crazy that I'm still using the same IDE in 2026. [1] https://youtu.be/ESGevBO4KKA?t=682", "context": "", "use_case": "game development", "switched_from": "", "story": "Let's compile Quake like it's 1997"}, {"id": 773193889, "item_id": 48324618, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48324618", "by": "justin66", "date": "2026-05-29", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "is known among other things for still using visual c++ 6.", "excerpt": "Sean Barrett, author of the stb libraries [0] which are near-ubiquitous in game development, is known among other things for still using visual c++ 6. [1] [0] https://github.com/nothings/stb [1] https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=nQrzB5P5NPE", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Let's compile Quake like it's 1997"}, {"id": 773137104, "item_id": 48321069, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48321069", "by": "haspok", "date": "2026-05-29", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "VC++ was great.", "excerpt": "I used VS6 professionally and for private business around 2000-2004, and it was still going strong then. VC++ was great. One thing though that I still have nightmares about is Visual SourceSafe, Microsoft's idea of a source control system for small teams. It was not only terrible to use (and slow), but we regularly lost data in it due to concurrency issues.", "context": "", "use_case": "professional C++ development", "switched_from": "", "story": "Let's compile Quake like it's 1997"}, {"id": 773135616, "item_id": 48320976, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48320976", "by": "EliRivers", "date": "2026-05-29", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "The last time I used it in anger to release commercial software", "excerpt": "Ah yes, VC++6.0 It had such a long lifetime. The last time I used it in anger to release commercial software was round about the year 2020, at which point the dev environment for that particular piece of software that customers were still paying annual license fees on was a VM machine. The source code repo it linked to had been unknowingly destroyed years earlier, so the VM image was copied around as needed. One had ", "context": "", "use_case": "Building commercial software", "switched_from": "", "story": "Let's compile Quake like it's 1997"}, {"id": 773134720, "item_id": 48320920, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48320920", "by": "DanielHB", "date": "2026-05-29", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "", "excerpt": "Turbo Pascal had breakpoints, variable inspections in the late 80s. I think it had stack traces too but not 100% sure. I am not old enough to have used it professionally, but my teacher used it for teaching intro programming in the early 2000s. So I used it quite a lot, the debugger was great and the development loop was so tight. Not until I got into web dev did it ever feel \"fast\" to make change->see change. To thi", "context": "", "use_case": "IDE and debugger", "switched_from": "", "story": "Let's compile Quake like it's 1997"}, {"id": 762638368, "item_id": 47664898, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47664898", "by": "anarticle", "date": "2026-04-06", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Right about VC6 was the sweet spot imo", "excerpt": "Programming Windows is THE authoritative source on Win32 programming: https://www.charlespetzold.com/books.html It is a fantastic book, I learned everything I know on Win32 from it. Wrote real time scientific software in windows for ~10y! We did it all, external hardware control, custom UIs, etc. Thanks Ryan Geiss for your timing info. Right about VC6 was the sweet spot imo, C/C++ with lightning fast UI for docs and ", "context": "", "use_case": "C/C++ desktop development", "switched_from": "", "story": "Microsoft Hasn't Had a Coherent GUI Strategy Since Petzold"}, {"id": 752516450, "item_id": 47032278, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47032278", "by": "pseudohadamard", "date": "2026-02-16", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "VC++ 6.0 would load, build the project, and have it ready to run", "excerpt": "I worked with VC++ 6.0 up until Windows 11 when it really, really wouldn't run any more, then switched to VS 2008. The code is portable across multiple systems so it didn't really matter which version of VS it's developed with, and VC++ 6.0 would load, build the project, and have it ready to run while VS 2022 was still struggling through its startup process. VS 2008 is starting to show the elephantine... no, continen", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "I Fixed Windows Native Development"}, {"id": 751102336, "item_id": 46943896, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46943896", "by": "krystalgamer", "date": "2026-02-09", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "anyone that plans to use Visual C++ 6.0 with git", "excerpt": "The part messing up the workspace files (dsw) is very important for anyone that plans to use Visual C++ 6.0 with git! There's also an easy fix: https://github.com/krystalgamer/spidey-decomp/blob/ad49c0f5f66c00593cd6903c96000a145d10641c/.gitattributes#L7-L10", "context": "", "use_case": "retro C++ development", "switched_from": "", "story": "Let's compile Quake like it's 1997"}, {"id": 750998672, "item_id": 46937417, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46937417", "by": "direwolf20", "date": "2026-02-08", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "Visual C++ 6 was the first C(++) compiler I used. I'm fairly certain it had auto completion (Intellisense).", "excerpt": "Visual C++ 6 was the first C(++) compiler I used. I'm fairly certain it had auto completion (Intellisense). Casey Muratori would point out the debugger ran faster on hardware from the era than modern versions run on today's hardware, though I don't have a link to the side\u2013by\u2013side video comparison. Edit: Casey Muratori showing off the speed of visual studio 6 on a Pentium something after ranting about it: Jump to 36:0", "context": "", "use_case": "C++ development", "switched_from": "", "story": "Let's compile Quake like it's 1997"}]}