I\'ve read related questions like this and this, and other pages, but they don\'t really answer my question.
Basically, I see code like the following.
__declspec(dllimport)
There are multiple types of attributes and specifiers that you can set based on what you are doing, what compiler you are using, what operating system you're targeting, ext. What most people learn is not targeted at a specific compiler but the core C++/C standards which everyone supports.