39 replies to this topic

[kunos]

Visual Studio will making my life easier???

Dude.. get over it. Kill the gremlins living in your PC, reinstall Windows and Visual Studio and live happy.

It should just be "Create New Solution", "Console Application".. click click.. control F5.. Hello World... come on. It is not rocket science. It's 4 clicks in a row.

[Serapth]

I have never had a problem with the Visual Studio series of products except:

• Visual Studio.NET, which was a buggy piece of garbage
• The integrated help system, which was complete crap and would lock your PC up for 3+ hours every time it need to rebuild the index because you added new documentation
• When installing beta software on a production machine. I should no better, and I do, but I do it anyways.

This is coming from someone who has been using Visual Studio since before it was called Visual Studio ( and when, for the record, it was complete garbage and far inferior to the competition from Borland ).

[Drathis]

If it is possible to use a text editor and a compiler to do C++, please I'll read a 10,000 page tutorial over keep on fighting these IDE's. It would seem to me it's possible, just most rely on the IDE to take care of certain things that could likely be done fairly simply in one's code or with an additional library file.

The reason you hate the C++ IDE's is that you haven't read that 10 000 page tutorial that explains how C++ compilation works. You don't yet know why you have to jump so many loops in an IDE, but you have to set up those same things on the command line and it's even harder. You just don't know what you are doing but learning to do it by hand could actually be a great learning experience. You would learn why you have to do the things you do in IDE.

Last time I programmed C++(years ago) I had to pray I would get the right settings and libraries and it would still work on other computers too. C++ is complicated and I didn't have time to learn everything about compiling and linking with C++. I wasn't using an IDE either. It's not the IDE's, it's the language(or it's compilation model).

[Krik]

Your machine is heavily broken and all your fixes are only going to make your life worse. Visual Studio 2010 works with MSBuild 4.0, and shoehorning in 3.5 is just asking for trouble.
Visual Studio is as close as it comes to "It just works" as development tools get, especially one of it's complexity. It sounds like you have a bad .NET install. I would uninstall everything and reinstall Visual Studio from scratch.

Yep did that, twice. The second time I made sure all coresponding folders were removed and I spent about 3 hours manually removing all Visual Studio, MSBuild, and .NET Frame work registry entries I could find. It's amazing even Microsoft doesn't know how to clean the registry (that they made) when you uninstall their software.

Maybe later when I am burnt out form reading up on CMake and makefiles I'll think about trying one last time to get Visual Studio installed. I will have to revert back to a restore point prior to the first install. Unfortunately that is going to wipe out some software and several updates I did after installing Visual Studio.

Kill the gremlins living in your PC.

Wish I could, I would have sworn gremlins was a system requirement for using Microsoft products... No wait, gremlins is one of the support packages they install.

[Cornstalks]

I'm gonna vote with those who say your machine is broken, but I'm also going to nitpick some things:

It's amazing even Microsoft doesn't know how to clean the registry (that they made) when you uninstall their software.

Different teams (those who made Windows and the registry didn't make Visual Studio or its (un)installer).

If it is possible to use a text editor and a compiler to do C++, please I'll read a 10,000 page tutorial over keep on fighting these IDE's.

That probably won't save you, to be honest. Your build environment for IDE-less development is way easier to screw up than an IDE's. If you can't get an IDE to work for you, using the command line probably won't work either. Sure, you might get a "Hello world" app out of it, but chances are that if something is screwing up your IDE so bad you have to constantly battle it, it likely is a) just caused by you not taking the time to understand the IDE (command line development will take more time, especially if you're just starting out with it, so switching probably wouldn't help you); or b) something on your system is screwed up, and chances are that if it screwed up your IDE, it'll screw up other things too.

I like Emacs and make and all that, and if you want to stick with them great, go ahead. But do it for the right reasons. A screwed up environment is a screwed up environment, regardless of what tools you're using.

[xueweuchen]

I believe that in Linux，just use the text editor and the ‘make’ command is more convenient.

[Serapth]

I believe that in Linux，just use the text editor and the ‘make’ command is more convenient.

Anyone that thinks make files are the way to go needs to visit a doctor.

Coincidentally, I use Linux fairly often, and even when I am not using a compile language with a horrific build system like C++'s, I still use an IDE. They are a productivity tool, that is often foolish to avoid.

Edited by Serapth, 20 July 2012 - 10:03 AM.

[EJH]

You should learn IDEs if you want to get a job. At most interviews if you said "i don't use IDEs" your resume would probably go in the trash as soon as you leave. Also, when working with non-trivial projects, debugging with cout and file writes doesn't even remotely compare to an IDE debugger.

[MrDaaark]

...

There is nothing wrong with your IDE, you just don't understand how things work yet.

If you installed Visual Studio, you don't need to do anything to write C++ code. Just start a project, and start typing, then hit compile.

If you want to write code that requires the use of a library, you have to tell Visual Studio where those libraries are. Open the config screen and there are 2 sections. 1 is a list of folders where Visual Studio can find your headers (for #includes), and another is a list of folders where Visual Studio can find your library files for the linker. You edit these on a global or per project basis.

In your project, you have to configure a similar screen that tells Visual Studio which libraries you will be linking to. It's simple enough. eg: If you are using OpenGL, then you point it to the OpenGL library.

Then when you compile, the compiler and linker know where to look for all your dependancies.

Copying random files around into the project's folder, or into your compiler's folders is a stupid thing to do. You are just going to end up with a mess, and you'll never know which version of which library you have in any given folder. Set your IDE up properly, and leave the libraries in their proper folders.

[mhagain]

There's a moral behind all of this, and it goes something like this. Command-line building and IDE building are two completely different and incomparable approaches to the same problem. Each requires a different mindset and approach. If you try to take the way you do one and apply it to the other you're going to create a mess and get your fingers burned. It's not that "IDEs are awkward and etc", it's that you just did the computing equivalent of trying to make pizza in a toaster.

[LorenzoGatti]

As a compromise between using an IDE, which you want to avoid, and "stone age" command line development, I'd suggest

• Automating the build, obsessively and completely. You MUST have a batch file, shell script etc. to call for each build variant. This ensures that you know what you are doing, that no mistakes (e.g. calling make rather than make install) are possible, that you can run unit tests reliably, that you can call your build commands from anywhere (particularly from a button in your text editor and in combination with source control operations).
• Using fancy text editors and taking time to configure them properly. Syntax highlighting, line numbers, folding and Ctags integration reduce the gap with a proper IDE to autocompletion, which isn't strictly necessary; debugger integration, which might likely be managed from the debugger side (like in DDD); and various auditing functions which add only convenience to the messages you can get from your compiler and lint tools. For the record: do you consider Emacs an IDE, or are you willing to use it?

[Shippou]

Whats so hard about IDE's ?
Bloodshed C++ has never given me any issues .

[kunos]

Whats so hard about IDE's ?
Bloodshed C++ has never given me any issues .

you didn't get the memo?
http://www.cplusplus.com/forum/articles/36896/

[Shippou]

Whats so hard about IDE's ?
Bloodshed C++ has never given me any issues .

you didn't get the memo?
http://www.cplusplus...articles/36896/

No I didn't get that memo - I've been blissfully unaware that Bloodshed was slightly outdated ... - Guess I'll have to tack C++ onto Eclipse now... * sigh *

[Serapth]

Whats so hard about IDE's ?
Bloodshed C++ has never given me any issues .

you didn't get the memo?
http://www.cplusplus...articles/36896/

No I didn't get that memo - I've been blissfully unaware that Bloodshed was slightly outdated ... - Guess I'll have to tack C++ onto Eclipse now... * sigh *

Ugh, no.

Go for either Visual Studio, Code Blocks or Qt Creator, assuming you are on Windows. There is also KDevelop, XCode and even NetBeans.

All of which are better than Eclipse + CDT.

[kunos]

QTCreator is also available on linux and mac.. I can't imagine anybody using eclipse after trying QTCreator for 3 minutes, heck I'd rather take MonoDevelop than Eclipse

Edited by kunos, 23 July 2012 - 11:41 AM.

[Matt-D]

Whats so hard about IDE's ?
Bloodshed C++ has never given me any issues .

you didn't get the memo?
http://www.cplusplus...articles/36896/

No I didn't get that memo - I've been blissfully unaware that Bloodshed was slightly outdated ... - Guess I'll have to tack C++ onto Eclipse now... * sigh *

Or, if you want, you can try Orwell Dev-C++ -- "A maintained version of Dev-C++ which features an updated MinGW compiler and updated code."
http://sourceforge.n...s/orwelldevcpp/
http://orwelldevcpp.blogspot.com/
// Both the x32 and the x64 versions are available. "It also contains, among others, D3D9/10/11, GDI, Win32 and OpenGL headers and libraries in that flavor."

See also (you can sort by "Latest stable release"):
http://en.wikipedia....nts#C.2FC.2B.2B

Edited by Matt-D, 23 July 2012 - 02:18 PM.

[MrDaaark]

How long until the author of Orwell Dev-C++ abandons it? Are those DirectX headers even legal to use?

People never used DevC++ back in the day because it was any good. It was actually horrible software with tons of bugs that would corrupt all your work, and sometimes completely hose your project. It was also prone to crashing after any random keypress. We used it because it was all we had at the time! There was DevC++, Visual Studio (which had no free option), and a bunch of other OSS hobbyist IDEs that were useless and buggy. DevC++ was just the lesser evil!

But eventually better options came about, and DevC++ succumbed to the same fate as most OSS projects; the author abandoned it as soon as it stopped being fun, and became work.

Stick with something established.

[jbadams]

Or, if you want, you can try Orwell Dev-C++ -- "A maintained version of Dev-C++ which features an updated MinGW compiler and updated code."

I posted some thoughts on Orwell and wxDev-C++, and it does appear they're currently an acceptable option, but if you're going to choose one of the two (unless a 64bit compiler is a deal-breaker) I think there are strong arguments in favour of wxDev-C++ rather than Orwell. Personally, I'd still rather go with an alternative anyway, but to each their own.

[enunes]

I believe I understand you in this regard, and I encourage you to go ahead without the IDE.
I use Linux only and, except for the first six months when I was learning to code, I have never again used an IDE for programming in my life.
I work with embedded software and I can tell you can build and debug any arbitrarily complex piece of software without one of these clumbered IDEs.

In my opinion, one can't actually be serious about programming in C++ if he/she doesn't know enough about how a C++ program is built from source and what are the tools and steps involved in the lower levels. Apart from software bugs on the IDEs, I can see how "obscure" linking problems would be. Googling and hoping for some blog documentation to exist on the specific problem would then become the help resources.

All you need is a powerful text editor (maybe vim), knowledge about the build flow and compiler options (how to tell include and linking directories, linking options, how to build with debug symbols or optimizations) and learn to write Makefiles to automate and customize that.