What's the difference between C++ General and Microsoft Visual C++??

[learning_VB]

I noticed on Planet Source they have the category C++ general and Microsoft Visual C++. I did't know there was a difference. Is this code compatible? What are the differences? Thanks!

[CornedBee]

C++ is a language. Visual C++ is an IDE.

The C++ language doesn't provide any I/O or similar capabilites in itself, but every compiler must come with a standard library which provides basic features like console I/O and file handling.
The standard library does not, however, provide access to any really OS-dependent features such as threading and drawing. For those you have to rely on the API exposed by the OS.

The General C++ section on planetsourcecode handles pure C++ code, code that only uses the standard library and should compile on every reasonably standards compliant compiler (VC++7, gcc3.x, ...).
The Visual C++ specific section contains Windows-specific code. There is a good chance this code also compiles with the Borland compiler.
It also contains code for the Windows-development class library that comes with VC++: MFC. This code will only compile with VC++.