C++ Development Environment advice

[slapmatt]

I currently develop c# and ASP.NET using Visual Studio 2003, which in all honesty makes life as a developer extremely easy.

I'm looking to do some work in C++ and was hoping people with greater experience than me could give me some advice on what IDE to use, what is industry standard and basically any other C++ development tip bits.

Thanks!

[Plotloss]

Vis Studio, shirley?

[dern]

slapmatt said:

I currently develop c# and ASP.NET using Visual Studio 2003, which in all honesty makes life as a developer extremely easy.

If you like 2003 then get 2005. I started using 2003 when I moved from java to c# earlier this year and then to 2005. 2003 is frankly garbage compared to java ides such as eclipse but 2005 is genuinely useful and well up there. If you don't want to pay the full whack then look for the education version and see if you can get that or download visual studio c++ express from here...

http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/exp

Regards,

Mark

[Tripps]

Another vote for Visual Studio here, not done any C++ since Visual Studio 6, but the latest 2005 environment is a dream to work in, if you have a powerful enough PC.

The other route, depending upon your intended purpose might be the open-source compilers and IDEs such as GNU C++.

I've heard mixed stories on Borland C++ so wouldn't recommend that, although the Borland VCL library is very good and their IDE is a lot faster that Microsoft's they seem to be let down through poor testing - ironic when Borland intent to concentrate on their application lifecycle tools rather than development IDEs in the future...

[JonRB]

As Plotloss says, if you have a full copy of Visual Studio 2003 .NET then you have a very good C++ compiler and IDE already, you just probably haven't installed it.

Edit: Just to clarify, when you installed it you probably selected C# and ASP and very likely de-selected C++ on the grounds that you didn't need it. So do an "Add or Remove Components" and add C++

I've been using Visual Studio 2003 .NET for professional commercial C++ development for several years now and it is pretty much an industry standard now (having finally taken over from v6) and most developers who write proper (ie. un-managed) C++ aren't bothering to upgrade to 2005 as it doesn't add enough to make it worthwhile, apparantly.

Edited by JonRB on Wednesday 4th October 13:39

[slapmatt]

Excellent - working day-in, day-out with VS 2003 I was hoping people would come back with that was a good C++ IDE.

Much as I would love to upgrade to VS 2005, I am unfortunately limited by my teams lack of ambition to move to ASP.NET 2.0.

[JonRB]

You're going to find C++ a massive shock after C#

[slapmatt]

JonRB said:

You're going to find C++ a massive shock after C#

Tell me about it. It's not quite as bad as it may seem, it's a company who has C++ applications, but want to have them redeveloped in ASP.NET and c# - so I'm aiming for more of an understanding of C++ rather than an ability to code it on a daily basis. I do have some exposure to C++, but we're talking 5+ years ago, so I'm looking to brush up.

[Don]

JonRB said:

You're going to find C++ a massive shock after C#

What? You mean the phenomenal execution speed, readability, deployability of final executables and so on? The overall quality of the language? Proper destructors?

Or the fact that you have to remember to free objects off the heap?

C++. Boy do I miss it.

The only language I found that I thought was better was the last incarnation of Object Pascal in Delphi 5 or so. And even then...

C++ is pure. C++ is beautiful.

[scorp]

My personal favourite, MSVC 6. Similiar to Visual Studio, less bloat.

[Don]

scorp said:

My personal favourite, MSVC 6. Similiar to Visual Studio, less bloat.

Still use it when I need to maintain some of our codebase.

[Hanslow]

I use Vim Not strictly an IDE but lets me edit files.

I use Visual Studio for debugging though (and SunStudio on Solaris). Fun of multiplatform code and a proprietry build scheme that we have in place that doesn't map well into Vis Studio

We don't use any .NET or MFC framework on the particular product I'm working on, and our code has to be portable and multiplatform so no MS specific C++ isms.

[big_treacle]

Are you coding for a Windows App? If so I would guess you'd want to use Visual Studio or whatever its called. that sort of thing would probably come equipped with loads of windows library help etc.

As an embedded man, I tend to just use a text editor that's geared towards developers & then some compiler/makefile combination that's setup for whatever target I'm aiming at. If you don't like the microsoft stuff, I'm sure you could set up something like GCC to build and just use a developers text editor.

I've used an eclipse based thing as well for c++. can't remember what it was called tho sadly.

[NST]

used VS6 when i coding in C++ and MFC (yuk!) a few years ago. but the last few years its been mostly VS2003 and recently VS2005 (very nice) coding mostly C#, ASP.net. definitly recommend VS2003 for any C++ coding. as already mentioned its seems to be the industry standard.

i've used Eclipse a few times, its a nice IDE but i find it too slow sometimes.

NST

[dern]

NST said:

i've used Eclipse a few times, its a nice IDE but i find it too slow sometimes.

This is frequently because not enough memory has been allocated to it. As a java app it runs in it's own java virtual machine which has an amount of memory ring fenced for it and the default is pretty low for the size of the app. You can change the command associated with the program icon to assign more memory to it and it's a lot more performant. This doesn't mean that it grabs this amount of memory straight off the bat but it's the maximum the program will use. On my machine at work (which is a piss poor spec) eclipse is faster than vs2003 when you allow it to use more memory.

[JonRB]

Don said:

C++ is pure. C++ is beautiful.

I know, which is why I stick with it and am starting to be backed into a niche as a result.

The point I was making is that C++ -> C# is "blimey, this is a bit easy" but C# -> C++ is "blimey, nobody is holding my hand any more, I have to write my own resizing dialog code, GUI support is really primitive, oh no I have no fancy-dancy auto garbage collection, etc. etc."

So, as I said, it will be shock to the system to a C# developer used to having everything done for them.

[Tripps]

JonRB said:

So, as I said, it will be shock to the system to a C# developer used to having everything done for them.

I remember coding in C/C++ on UNIX boxes back at uni and thinking how and simple great the Moasic/X-Windows GUI support was compared to 68000 assembly on the Amiga, life is so much easier these days

Must say though, these days I like to get my teeth into a problem, rather than write the glue around it, so find myself using VB.NET more than I'd like to...

[dern]

Tripps said:

Must say though, these days I like to get my teeth into a problem, rather than write the glue around it, so find myself using VB.NET more than I'd like to...

Couldn't agree more. After 8 years of C under unix Java was a massive move forward and C# is more of the same. I could do everything I could before but didn't have to spend weeks tracking memory leaks, array bounds breaches and all that crap... fun my arse. Computers were developed as labour saving devices so let them do the donkey work imo and I'll just get paid thanks.

[NST]

dern said:

NST said:

i've used Eclipse a few times, its a nice IDE but i find it too slow sometimes.

This is frequently because not enough memory has been allocated to it. As a java app it runs in it's own java virtual machine which has an amount of memory ring fenced for it and the default is pretty low for the size of the app. You can change the command associated with the program icon to assign more memory to it and it's a lot more performant. This doesn't mean that it grabs this amount of memory straight off the bat but it's the maximum the program will use. On my machine at work (which is a piss poor spec) eclipse is faster than vs2003 when you allow it to use more memory.

thanks for the info.. i'll pass that on to guy at work who is having problems with eclipse running slowly

[JonRB]

dern said:

Couldn't agree more. After 8 years of C under unix Java was a massive move forward and C# is more of the same. I could do everything I could before but didn't have to spend weeks tracking memory leaks, array bounds breaches and all that crap... fun my arse. Computers were developed as labour saving devices so let them do the donkey work imo and I'll just get paid thanks.

Oh, I don't disagree with you. I'm fully aware that I am displaying dinosaur tendencies by sticking with C++

However, with 12 years professional experience in C++ I can command a higher rate as a C++ developer than if I tied to bid on a C# project with virtually no experience in the language. That tends to keep me in C++ too.

Edited by JonRB on Thursday 5th October 16:35