What's the best combiantion C++ Compiler+IDE for windows?
Asked by
Thammuz (
9287
)
October 16th, 2011
I’ve been programming in C for about 2 years now, with the goal of moving up to C++ and eventually game programming, and i’ve finally reached the point where I feel confident enough to attempt this step, problem is that the book I bought on game programming uses DirectX, which is Windows native and not cross platform. I used to program on Ubuntu, using Geany as the GUI and gcc as the compiler, but making gcc work correctly on windows is turning out to be a pain in the ass, so I thought I could ask someone with a little more experience in programming on windows.
In short: Which GUI works best (as in formats code correctly and makes it readable at a glance without too many manual adjustments) and which compiler should I use it with?
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6 Answers
im not a 1337 c++ programmer, but my teacher had us use visual c++ express (you could use visual studio if u wanna pay) for a couple of my classes and it was pretty good as far as formatting and readability
@nicky Yeah, that’s what the book suggests too, but i’m unclear how the whole evaluation business works. I mean, there doesn’t seem to be any particular restriction, but i wouldn’t like to start working on it and find myself a week later having to find another program after getting accustomed to it.
express isnt exactly an evaluation version, its not going to expire or anything. Its just a little stripped down from visual studio, kinda like photoshop elements vs the full photoshop. If you don’t want to use a microsoft product, i’ve also used devC++ which i enjoyed very much too!
Have you tried MinGW or the gcc package for Cygwin? If not, how have you gone about installing gcc to Windows? I suspect that if you are used to gcc, switching to another compiler will be a headache comparable to getting gcc to work.
Also, it’s apparently possible to run Geany under Windows. It requires that GTK+ be installed as well. If it were me I think I’d use Cygwin for this (in fact, I generally install Cygwin whenever I have to use Windows, if only because I hate PuTTY so much.)
Personally, I think that if you like Geany you should probably stick with it. I sometimes use it for PHP programming and I like it a lot (I am not a C programmer yet.) Probably there are some really great IDEs out there for Windows of which I’m unaware, but I think it’s unlikely that you’ll find one that’s enough better than what you are used to to be worth switching. If you do, I’ll be interested to hear about it!
@koanhead It’s just that i have gripes with forcing something that is designed for something else to work on windows. I’m unsure how well it work and i frankly don’t want to clutter up my laptop with superfluous stuff. I think i’m going to start with visual studio express and see if it works properly. I’ll keep you guys posted.
Just to give closure to this thread: I ended up doing as @koanhead suggested since it turned out Visual C++ Express does have an expiration date. Took me a little tinkering but, all in all, not as much as i would have feared.
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