Best C++ Ide or Editor For Windows

Best C++ IDE or Editor for Windows

I've found the latest release of NetBeans, which includes C/C++ support, to be excellent.

http://www.netbeans.org/features/cpp/index.html

Best C++ IDE or Editor for Windows

I've found the latest release of NetBeans, which includes C/C++ support, to be excellent.

http://www.netbeans.org/features/cpp/index.html

Suggestion for C IDE?

If you are used to a Unix-y feel and are looking for a text editor, I'd honestly avoid installing Visual Studio. It's a nice IDE, but it is very heavyweight and perhaps much more than you are asking for. That said, you might of course find that you like it, but be aware that you are potentially looking at a several-hundred-megabytes download, 2 gigs for the full package IIRC.

Netbeans is good too, but fairly heavy, and a little difficult to get set up correctly with C and C++, at least last time I tried. It's a good alternative to VS, though.

I'd go for a more lightweight solution, like Notepad++, vim for Windows, or my personal favourite, Geany - http://www.geany.org/

Getting the black background & colored syntax is possible on basically any advanced text editor/IDE nowadays.

As for the compiler, MinGW is probably your best bet. Or you could nick the compiler & toolset that comes with Visual Studio Express :)

What is the best IDE for C Development / Why use Emacs over an IDE?

I started off by using IDEs, Microsoft or not. Then, while working on QNX some long time ago, I was forced to do with a text editor + compiler/linker. Now I prefer this simple combination––a syntax highlighting editor + C compiler and linker cli + make––to any IDEs, even if environment allows for them.

The reasons are, for me:

1. it's everywhere. If you program in C, you do have the compiler, and usually you can get yourself an editor. The first thing I do––I get myself nedit on Linux or Notepad++ on Windows. I would go with vi, but GUI editors provide for a better fonts, and that is important when you look at code all day

2. you can program remotely, via ssh, when you need to. And it does help a lot sometimes to be able to ssh into the target and do some quick things there

3. it keeps me close to CLI, preferably UNIX/Linux CLI. So all the commands are on my fingertips, and when I need them I don't have to go read a reference book. And UNIX CLI can do things IDEs often can't––because their developers didn't think you'd need them

4. most importantly, it is very much like seeing the Matrix in raw code. I operate files, so I'm forced to keep them manageable. I'm finding things in my code manually, which makes me keep it simple and organized. I do Config Management explicitly, so I know when I'm synced and how. I know my Makefiles because I write them, and they only do what I tell them to

   (if you wonder if that works in "really big projects"––it does work, and the bigger the project the more performance it gains me)

5. when people ask me to look at their code, I don't have to learn the IDE they use

Which IDE Should I use for C++ on Windows?

On Windows I prefer:

Visual Studio + WinSCP

Best commercial C++ IDE?

I suppose mentioning VCL and MFC means you are referring to Windows IDEs only. With that said, I think VS2008 pretty much has the crown no contest. Its debugger is one of the best you can get and it's perfectly integrated into the IDE. Don't get me wrong, C++ builder is still a great piece of software, but I feel Borland's line of coding tools was in it's prime in the days before they sold it to Embarcadero. Visual Studio 2010 also looks pretty promising!

Is there a compiler or IDE for C on Windows that's regarded as an industry standard?

Well, Visual Studio is the standard on Windows, and there are free versions available. However it does have a bunch of Microsoft specific extensions.
For learning though, developing console apps are pretty easy and also fairly close to the standard K&R style C.

However, way back in the day I used to use Watcom, which was also pretty good for the time. It's a lot more sparse than Visual Studio, but that can be an advantage for a beginner.
I believe it's also available for free these days at http://www.openwatcom.org/index.php/Main_Page

I'd probably recommend starting with that, if your main O/S is Windows.

Edit: new live url

What is the easiest C++ IDE for students, non-programmers?

Visual C++ Express does support native C++ developement. I would strongly urge you to upgrade to the 2010 version to gain some C++0x support; C++0x makes it much easier to program in C++ without touching the nasty bits.

However, C++ as a first language sounds daunting. Particularly for those without any further programming aspiration; it's complicated, easy to misuse, and will blow up with poor error handling in hands of beginners.

For some casual programming introduction, I'd recommend something like JsFiddle: they can do it from anywhere with no special tools, and whatever they learn they might even be able to actually use as non-IT guys. It's also much more fun to get immediate feedback when learning something, which is another mark against C++.

So if you have to use C++, use C++0x to make stl algorithms "just work" using lambdas and avoid iterator complexity using the range-based for (amongst other improvements).

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