I am planning to design a video game by myself as a hobby. I probably sound like some overconfident idiot, but I am a C++ programmer for a living, and I believe I have the patience, time, and skills to do this.
However, my company does not allow us to use their license of Visual Studio for anything other than work, and I don't have the money right now to buy myself a copy of Visual Studio. What features does Visual Studio offer that Visual Express does not that may be of interest to me as I program this game? (I am primarily interesting in C++)
Thanks in advance!
EDIT: BTW, this game will use OpenGL 3D graphics, and will run primarily on Windows, although I may port it to Mac or Linux.
VS Express is designed for the hobby developer.
You can program the same software in Express the difference is in the tooling that makes you more productive and allows you to work as part of a team.
For a comparison of the editions see: http://www.microsoft.com/visualstudio/en-us/products/2010-editions
You should be fine with the express edition
You can find a table with the differences between versions here.
Related
I have tried searching on the internet but could not find out the compiler used by Visual Studio for C++ applications.
I wanted to know whether it is freely available & whether it can be used for commercial applications.
Traditionally I have been using Turbo C++.
The problem with Visual Studio C++ Express is that it does not work with some applications.
For example, BRL-CAD which is an open source project works properly with the commercial version but gives some problems for the Express edition.
It seems that there is some problem with MinGW compiler as well.
I am told this by the people running that project.
Visual Studio uses the same compiler for all editions. So, the Express edition uses the same compiler as the Professional edition. There are also no restrictions on producing commercial applications, in either case. There are differences in the advanced features offered by the IDE, but the compilers are the same. So whatever your problems are in getting the project to work, it is nothing to do with the compiler.
I'm learning C++, and I want to know from those who are very good developers now: What is the best IDE, Visual C++ 2008 Express or Eclipse Ganymede with CDT? Remember that I'm using Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate. Thanks!
The book that I'm reading is from Deitel: C++ How to Program, 5/e, because I don't know if the code of the book supports Microsoft Visual C++ 2008 Express.
I'm using both regularly now.
Visual studio is easier and more user friendly. I have issues with it though. They force you to do a number of things for reasons the benefit Microsoft and not you. It's free so you can't complain that much. Support is non existent but there's google for help.
Eclipse Gallileo does some difficult things startlingly well, but does some simple stuff startlingly badly. Such as when you compile if there's an error you get no visual indication. You have to open the problems window to see the errors. DOH! Eclipse is nearly as good as visual studio overall and is one of the best when using linux. The new version of the debugger has some very nice new features as well. Support is poor to non existent but there's google for help.
I tried codeblocks. The support was not very good to rude. I found it difficult to do anything serious with.
If you're working on Windows, MSVC++ 2008 Express is probably the one to go with, since it's the platform's native compiler. If you don't have any experience with Eclipse already, definitely go with MSVC. I've found Eclipse to be very counter-intuitive, but that's me, you may love it.
I use codeblocks :) I like it a lot actually. Its interface is really easy to use.
I am having issues with MSVS right now which I will be posting a question about here in a few minutes.
Either will do you fine at this stage, but on balance I think you will find VS 2008 Express a little more straightforward unless you have much Eclipse experience.
That said, once you begin developing your OS you may find that you need to upgrade to the full (non-Express) version.
I use both Visual Studio 2005 Pro (at work) and Eclipse CDT (for personal projects).
I do prefer to use Eclipse because I program meanly Qt applications on Windows with it. The Qt integration module is really good (and available freely at http://qt.nokia.com/).
Once you are there, you could give a try also to Qt's lightweight IDE: Qt Creator.
If you are going to do C++ GUI programming, I think you should definitively go with Eclipse CDT and the Qt Integration plugin. I've programmed (and suffering) several years of MFC before learning Qt and I will never go back!
Hope it helps!
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I'm from a Java school, but I'd like to get my hands dirty in C/C++ development as well. Can you suggest:
a Lightweight beginner IDE [Eg: JCreator for Java] (Simple and small download)
a full-blown advanced IDE [Eg: Eclipse for Java] (Every feature and huge download)
should I use GCC or other compilers?
Thanks a lot guys!
1) a Lightweight beginner IDE [Eg: JCreator for Java] (Simple and small download)
Eclipse with CDT (~40 MB download) or Visual Studio 2008 Express edition (2.6 MB download for installer and then tons of stuff that it'll pull from the net) -- it's free. Also, get the SP1. But, I still suggest that you take a look at Visual Studio.
2) a full-blown advanced IDE [Eg: Eclipse for Java] (Every feature and huge download)
Eclipse with CDT (~40 MB download) or Visual Studio 2008 Professional (if you are going to pay).
3) should I use GCC or other compilers?
Yes and no. Depends on your needs. GNU g++ is great to get started with. However, hooking up with CDT may prove to be difficult.
If you intend to do professional Windows programming in near future, it is best to buy the Visual Studio 2008 Pro (and install SP1) and get used to it.
If you have to do it in Vista and if it is Microsoft platform-specific, then there is no better full-blown IDE than Visual Studio. You can download Visual Studio Express Edition for C++ development as a lighter IDE (Not that light though but it is free). Eclipse with GCC works great as well if you want to go cross-platform.
I suggest Code::Blocks. Remember to download the codeblocks-8.02mingw-setup.exe, it includes the GCC compiler and GDB debugger. With it you're ready to start :)
I agree that there is no better Windows IDE for C++ development than Visual Studio. Apart from the free Visual Studio Express, you might also want to consider Visual Studio Standard. It costs about $200 in the US and, among other advantages, allows you to use third-party plugins such as Visual Assist. Those will help you speed up your development even further.
For really light weight, you can go without any IDE. Grab Cygwin, install GCC and start writing code in any text editor (E.g. Crimson Editor). In fact, I suggest you try this to get an idea of how C++ programs are actually compiled behind the scene of an IDE.
You can get Visual Studio Express C++, which is a good package for a beginner. Probably easiest to get started with this.
You can get Eclipse with CDT and use the Cygwin GCC tools, but this is inferior to Visual Studio in certain ways.
Then there's CodeBlock, which I've heard good things about, but don't know how it compares to Visual Studio or Eclipse/CDT.
Do you want to just learn C++ or use C++ to interact with Vista components? The title of your question says Vista but your description is asking which IDE to use.
I agree using Visual Studio C++ Express is a great place to start. It will basically give you the foundation for writing Windows Apps with C++. You said you're from the JAVA world and if you have experience with C# or VB.NET, don't expect all the designers and wizards to be here in C++. Anyone who had done C++ GUI work knows that this isn't always the case. Not to discourage you, there are designers, just not for everything.
If you want to learn how to interact with Windows through C++, the VC++ main site is here, and the how-do-i videos here, also download the feature pack if you haven't installed SP1 yet is here, besides ribbonizing MFC, they've included Boost in the STL, which is awesome. And finally, the guided tours are here.
Also, you don't technically need MFC to write GUI applications, you can call Win32 API functions directly, but MFC is a foundation and will help.
That should get your started. If you need more help, just post a comment.
I agree with the posters above. For microsoft platform specific development, the Visual Studio environment is by far the best. The express editions are nice, but if I remember correctly, they do't come with the win32 SDK, so you still can't make windows GUI programs with it (officially)...
If all you want is to learn C++, gcc/g++ is a great free compiler and an editor with syntax highlighting should be enough. I find an IDE only adds value for larger projects, for simple test/learning projects and IDE is not that neccessary.
You mentioned that that you know about Eclipse for Java. If you have any experience with Eclipse for Java then you can leverage most of that experience towards your C/C++ development by using Eclipse's CDT ( C/C++ Development Toolkit ) plugin.
I strongly encourage using Eclipse with CDT over using Visual Studio because any time spent learning Visual Studio will be lost if you ever want to do any Linux development.
...
I forgot to mention that Eclipse with CDT has all the important features that full version VS has ( and probably more ) ... but doesn't cost any money.
I am rather partial to the Code Gear (formerly Borland) C++ compiler line which I have been using for years.
They have recently release a free 'community' addition called Turbo Explorer
Netbeans is also very good IDE with many futures in it.
Are there any good, free (or at least reasonably cheap)
profilers for at least native C++ that can integrate with
Visual Studio 2008 Professional?
I looked at DevPartner community edition but they
seem to only support Visual Studio 2003 and Visual Studio 2005.
Failing that are there any good free/cheap profilers in
general that I can get working with VS with relativly little
friction?
At my workplace we use AQTime. It's not free ($600 or 30-day trial) but it really works wonders. I like it because it can handle both native (we do C++) and managed code. It works in stand-alone mode, integrates with Visual Studio, and also works with Borland's IDE (for those C++ Builder and Delphi fans out there).
But I will be watching this question to see if there are any free tools I can use at home =)
Microsoft actually provides a stand-alone verson of the profiler, which you can use from the command-line.
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=fd02c7d6-5306-41f2-a1be-b7dcb74c9c0b&displaylang=en
Another vote for AQTime. We've been really happy with it. But of course it's not free as you asked...
I tried CodeAnalyst once but as far as I could see it was doing polling rather than instrumentation, and hence gave fairly crude results. Haven't found any free profilers for Windows that I liked better than that.
Free profiler for VS 2008:
http://unick-soft.ru/Articles.cgi?id=8
It is russian article, but you can use translate google com.
This technique is free, and works well in Visual Studio.
http://supercomputingblog.com/windows/how-to-profile-c-code-in-visual-studio-for-free/ if you want something very simple
Intel's VTune or AMD's CodeAnalyst are both free, I believe.
I'm using Visual Studio C++ 2008 Express to learn a native API for a new project. What I'm wondering is: what productivity features present in the full version that you take for granted are missing from Visual Studio Express? I'm not referring to large "paid" features like MFC support - I'm thinking of small features (sometimes provided by Add Ins) like "Copy File to Output Dir"
Also, it doesn't have to be specific to C++ edition - that's just the exact release I happen to be using.
Note: I'm an experienced Java programmer and I most frequently use IntelliJ IDEA (disclaimer: that's just for reference - I'm not looking to compare VS vs. IDEA).
EDIT: Revised to include Add Ins that enhance the experience.
The ability to use addins are sorely missed, for example Visual Assist, which is the productivity booster.
I was all like "oh, let me google that for you", but Microsoft made life difficult indeed. Seems that Wikipedia is our best source at this moment:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Visual_Studio_Express#Visual_C.2B.2B_Express
If you plan to develop a C/C++ WIN32 GUI application then the major component that is missing is the resource editor (i.e. the GUI builder tool).
The express version will still compile resource files, but you will have to create the resource files by hand or use a third party resource editor.