Borland Vs. Microsoft

Well if you goto www.ebay.com & type in Microsoft Visual C++ 6.0 I know you can find it for about $40 or less. I'm not sure how much borland is, but I'm sure unless you also find it on Ebay that it's going to be more money.

I'm not sure about game companies, but most of the companies that write business applications seem to prefer and use MSVC++ (I interviewed with several about a year ago and all of them used MSVC++), and they like it if you have experience using it.
I know that doesn't really answer your question, but it is something to think about...

[This message has been edited by felisandria (edited August 09, 1999).]

MSVC++ is pretty much the standard now for game development. If you are a student, you can pick it up at academic pricing for about $60. There is also a book from Microsoft Press called "Learn Visual C++ Now" (or something like that) that includes MSVC++ on the companion CD.

As far as Windows programming goes, I'd have trouble recommending Borland to anyone for one simple reason--VC is made by Microsoft, and so is DirectX. I don't know whether this still happens, but I can remember when DirectX (Game SDK) first came out there were a lot of problems getting it to work with Borland. Microsoft seems to include Borland libraries these days, but I'd much rather take the safest route and get the product DirectX was designed to work with.