Should I choose Visual C++ 2010 or 2008?

I'm taking computing this year for my A-levels (major exam), and there's a coursework component in which we have to code solutions to problems in C++. My school just switched to using Visual C++ 2008 this year (we were using 6.0 previously) and our teacher told us to download VC++ 2008 Express Edition.

However, I've already got Visual Studio 2010 Pro on my machine, and I have access to VS 2008 Pro as well through Microsoft's DreamSpark program for students. Is there a significant difference between 2010 and 2008, and between Express and Pro?

I heard that 2010 has a feature that checks your code as you type - so you don't have to开发者_JAVA技巧 compile to find syntax errors, for example. I was thinking maybe this could help me learn faster when practicing on my own at home. But I'm worried I might not be able to open my 2008 files from school at home (and vice versa), or that the interfaces/features are so different that I'll get confused during the actual exam.

My main concern is that using VS2010 at home will make me confused/more helpless when I switch to VS2008 in school for the exam. For example this Intellisense feature mentioned in VS2010 seems really useful, but if VS2008 doesn't have it/has a lousier version of it, I might not be able to work as well during the final exam.

Thanks for your answers so far.

Yes, Visual C++ 2010 is much more powerful of an IDE than 2008. The only disadvantage I've seen so far is that it's a bit slower, but for C++, it's probably worth it. (I wouldn't say the same for C#, for instance, but C++ has had major improvements, with improved IntelliSense, check as you type, etc.)

The main advantage I see with Visual Studio 2010, it's that in Visual C++ they have implemented a part of the forthcoming C++0x standard. It is the only reason that made me install this version at home. ( at office we are working with visual 2003 :-( )

EDIT: a second reason, interesting to my eye, is the support for F# with the total.NET library. Really nice language to try (i'm still only learning it though) which brings a taste of functionnal programming in the MS world. I think it's a excellent initiative from them.

Visual Studio 2010 is the latest version from Microsoft with all the latest changes and fixes (yes, along with a few new bugs).

Unless you have some specific reason to use an older version, this is the one you should be using.

But I'm worried I might not be able to open my 2008 files from school at home (and vice versa),

I don't have experience working with C++ but I'm assuming it's the same as for C#. In C# the project files should open fine in both versions, however the solution files will be different. If you open a 2008 solution with 2010 it will ask you to migrate it. You can backup the 2008 sln file (and maybe rename one of them) and use the respective solution files for each version. The other files should be the same (or at least work in both versions).