[olliej]

[edit: and I just realized I replied to you elsewhere. sigh. keeping it classy :-/]

Windows is a different platform, so comparing it to linux isn't relevant, any more than saying I can't run the code I compiled for sparc on a ppc Mac.

[usrusr]

But "C++ on Linux" isn't "C++". It's a subset of C++ usage. The lack of competing compilers on some OS might be a feature of those OS, or in the eyes of some mabye even a failure of those OS, but it's certainly no feature of the language. ABI compatibility isn't about using the same binary on different OS, it's about running binaries from different compilers/compiler versions/compiler configurations in the same process.

[tsimionescu]

The point is: C++ libraries compiled for Windows with MSVC are not ABI compatible with C++ libraries compiled for Windows by GCC or clang.