I was contemplating switching to Linux for C++ development, coming from a Windows environment. Is this a bad idea? My workplace uses Windows and Visual Studio for our projects (some C# and java too, but right now I'm only developing in C++). If they decide to put me on a C# project, would development still possible (mono?)? What are the difficulties in this sort of transition?
Would I have a problem working on their projects and vice versa? I read somewhere that there'd be problems with precompiled headers and such (we do use them), and encodings (tabs/spaces, line endings, etc)..
If it's not too hard to do this switch, how do I get started? IDE? vim+make?
Thanks.
By the way, we make MOSTLY windows software..
EDIT: Thanks guys, I guess that makes sense..
That's a bad idea. I can see at least two reasons :
Develop on the same OS you write software for
Visual Studio rocks
Stick with Windows if you're developing for C++ and C#.
The Visual Studio debugger is absolutely brilliant, and it seems that most of the Linux IDEs aren't comparable (except Eclipse for Java stuff).
Also, the chances are that you'll be using a different compiler if you're on Linux, and that can cause really weird bugs.
I'm a Mac user (former FreeBSD guy), so I understand your gut feeling. In short: you're going to want to use Visual Studio. It's the best tool there is for your C# projects, period. It's also the best tool for your Windows-centric C++ programming. Even if it wasn't, your testing is going to suffer if you don't run the OS it's going to run on.
On the bright side, always do your development in a virtual machine. Especially on Windows. Use source control and take frequent snapshots of your VM. When you're doing this, it doesn't matter if you run Linux or OS X on your host.
Cheers
Nik
Not a very good idea because support for Windows Forms in mono isn't complete yet. Linux c# developers usually use GtkSharp for GUI, which will add another dependency to your app and is quite different from Windows Forms. But GtkSharp isn't bad either. I especially like the packing boxes feature of GTK because it makes my controls (err, widgets) much easier to resize properly and automatically eliminates all screen DPI problems.
But there is also a chance that your existing code might have other dependencies which are not present on Linux, especially unmanaged code called with P/Invoke. If that's the case, doing the development on Linux might be impossible.
I currently develop on both windows and linux. I find it's pretty useful to compile the same code under those two (or maybe more) platform, as you can find some coding errors thanks to vc++ and some other thanks to gcc. Of course, the most important platform is the one you are developing for. If your application will run on windows, develop it on the same platform and only if you can allocate more resources, try to port it on linux or other.
Anyway, it's a good habit to think about portability during develop, it implies to use standard solutions as much as possible
I have switched to doing web development on linux,
here's what I have personally found
In order to do things right that doesn't cause problems in the end (using particular software) I have to have a virtual machine. Wine isn't far enough along to be stable for the software I need
Also for my particular needs, just the whole "System Font" being different has caused numerous scripting issues b/w windows and unix/linux
I am going to be switching back to win. I LOVE LINUX, but in a specialized field where the majority of my clients use windows and IE .... I need to run with what they have...
I think this is the smartest for productivity
(personal opinion, not mandate from God)
tim
I suggest sticking to windows. Windows is great for windows development. Linux is where you can write cross-platform stuff/ Linux specific stuff (if you wish). I tried Mono for learning C#, it worked for toy examples, but not for some parts of .NET. I switched back to windows. I can't imagine it is a good idea to switch to Linux. I intend no offense, this is just my opinion.
If you're missing a lot of Linux -- and you need to stay on a Windows box to interact with your team AND your work application -- install Cygwin and the GNU Win32 tools.
If you where absolutely sold on Linux, VMWare is very good for running a virtual machine and if you compile your Linux / cross-platform programs using the mingw toolchain, adding a single dependency, which can be statically, you shouldn't get any windows errors.
Related
I'm going to enter a small game competition in the coming months. They require the submission to be able to be compiled ( and it will be, before being run/evaluated for the contest) on Linux. I'm going to be using SDL and C++. I've only ever developed on Windows before and I've grown quite accustomed to the benefits Visual Studio gives. I'd like to be able to develop in windows with VS, and then near the end of the process migrate it over to linux. Beside making sure SDL is already installed on the Linux machine, are there things I can do throughout development that will make the process easier? Also, the contest rule for all of this states:
it must also work on an open platform (we strongly recommend making sure that your program run on modern flavors of GNU/Linux, as all of the judges will have access to it).
I assume compiling/running in Ubuntu (already have a home server with this) would be sufficient for this?
Your question is slightly open-ended, but my first suggestion would be to use a proper cross-platform build system such as CMake from day one. I would refrain from "migrating" to Linux at the very end; you may be under a rough schedule (and maybe run into problems you did not anticipate). Thus, a continuous build of (working) Linux versions will help ease your worries.
Furthermore, if the game is meant to run solely under Linux, why not install Ubuntu in a Virtual Machine somewhere and get acquainted with one of the development environments such as kdevelop or qtcreator? Wouldn't direct contact with the platform you are developing for make things a little easier?
I'm developing games and started like you. I'd advise you to use SFML library for this purposes. It's not very big and is very good thing to start from.
There you can use:
2D renderer (OpenGL)
Fonts
Timers
Wrappers around images/sprites
Post effects/shaders
Sound
Network
In this page you can find a few start examples.
I am a primary windows developer with experience in C#, .NET, Visual C/C++. I want to lean C/C++ development in linux in order to create portable GUI applications which run on both Windows and Linux.
I have used Fedora in past (2005). Want your suggestions to know which is the best distribution currently to learn programming in linux.
You can't really go wrong with any of the major ones. Personally I use Debian, but Fedora and OpenSUSE are good choices as well.
I would also like to point out that you can use C# to create portable GUI applications. Have a look at Mono and Gtk#. I have developed quite a few Gtk# apps and they usually run flawlessly on Windows and Linux, with very little work on my part. It might not be a bad introduction to coding on Linux, as you will be able to use a familiar language.
Any modern Linux distribution will do, as they all includes (or makes it easy to install) GCC. To easily create portable GUI applications, I would recommend taking a look at Qt.
Since every distro worth its salt has a Development Package that includes gcc, g++ and gdb, it's really going to come down to the IDE you develop your code in. Eclipse is an excellent IDE for C & C++ which just happens to be written in java. So long story short, use whatever distro you are comfortable with, it really doesn't matter all that much.
There is none Distribution you couldn't use. If you want an easy distribution working almost out of the box. With a lot of things configured automatically i would suggest you use ubuntu.
If you like to do more things on your own I'd tend to debian. Anyway you could simply code with qt and use the linux box for debugging only.
Slackware, ArchLinux or CentOS.
Stay away from Ubuntu and its derivatives, you will spend more time messing with packet manager apt-get than doing code. If you choose Debian-derivatives you will spend time wondering why your programs dont work only to find out you need packetname-devel also (!)
A base Slackware install should be enough to get you started, if you would like to keep having the latest programs, use ArchLinux.
You wrote "to create portable GUI applications which run on both Windows and Linux" - I suggest that you consider Qt (used to be from Trolltech now part of Nokia). http://qt.nokia.com/products/
I was reading today question on IDEs fo C++, and there are very good ones like Netbeans.
My question is about creating a software in C++ on Windows Environment, but let users install and run my software also on Linux and OSX.
Does netbeans has a compiler to do the job, or is there any good IDE which has a compiler for targeting my c++ code to these other environments?
thank you
QtCreator. It's awesome, slick and everything.
While it is not as feature rich as some competitors, it does many things just right that others don't.
I would say it is the one truly cross-platform IDE that is competitive to single-platform solutions. And it comes with tight integration of a very powerful and clean cross-platform toolkit. Something that you need for most cross-platform applications by itself.
I use Eclipse CDT and have had some degree of success. But I'm a Java programmer, so it's what I'm used to. It's worth checking out, and the extensions are quite cool.
Many people like Code::Blocks and it is cross-platform, with integrated debugging, code completion, etc. Qt Creator is also good and at least still very minimalistic.
Without a doubt VisualStudio with gnu make.
I've found Visual Studio to have the best IDE for C++. In addition, it's debugger and the way it handles multi-threaded applications is excellent.
And you can tweak the properties for your project to use different compilers and compiler flags of your choice, so it can build to any target.
You're talking about cross-compiling as GMan said, that's a compiler job, not IDE's and itu's kind of hard to make C++ software that runs well on Linux/Windows/MacOSX, C++ isn't a cross plataform language beacuse of its ABI, so you should try to use C++ standart code.
If you're making a consloe application there's no much problem just be care not to use system interface, but if you're planning to do some kind of graphics app then C++ it not the better choice for your purpose. Try some design that split the view from the controller/model of the app.
You can use QtCreator or NetBeans. First on C++ secord on Java. Both use MinGW g++.
Just a thought: you don't need to use a single IDE for all platforms. It is very common, for example, to use Visual Studio on Windows and Xcode on Mac OS X for cross-platform projects. I'm not familiar with Linux IDEs thought so couldn't recommend anything there.
Write makefiles for each OS? Simple enough seems to me.
Concerning cross plattform development it doesn't make a difference which IDE you use. Just make sure you use a cross platform (and possibly IDE independent) build system like SCons or cmake.
I have a friend who is trying to make the switch to Linux, but is hung up on the apparent lack of debugging/IDE environments for C++, especially as they relate to template programming. He has been using visual studio for years and is maybe a little spoiled by their awesome IDE. Does anyone have any good suggestions for an environment where he can, under Linux, develop and debug with all of the usual things (Breakpoints, line highlighting for compilation errors, step in/over/out/etc, etc) that he's accustomed to? Thanks!
How about Eclipse + CDT ?
Although many people think of it as a Java IDE, he could try NetBeans. I've used it on Windows for C and C++ development without a problem, and I know NetBeans is supported on Linux, so it would be worth a shot.
It looks like most of the features he wants are included in the C/C++ development toolkit, including integration with GDB, a profiler, and more.
Visual Studio is good, indeed.
On the free side:
Qt Creator is getting quite good too, it's worth a try. There are advantageous by-products coming from the Qt framework:
huge library - not only to build GUI applications but for other domains as well
portability on multiple platforms
A version 1.3 beta is available as a preview of the upcoming release but the current 1.2.1 is already all you need to manage projects.
Eclipse has already been mentioned, it's a very good environment offering many plug-ins (Mylyn, SVN, ...).
MonoDevelop somewhat supports C++ (more and more, I didn't check the latest version).
I've used Eclipse for C/C++ and it's pretty useful. It's also used at ACM ICPC World Finals http://cm.baylor.edu/welcome.icpc
I'd recommand Code::Blocks (but use a nighty build). It can be coupled with gdb to enable step by step debugging and all that stuff.
Not exactly an IDE but SublimeText 2/3 is available on Linux now. There may be a debugger plugin for it too, who knows.
Edit
Here's a gdb plugin for SublimeText
I havn't explored it personally, but Emacs has a C++ development addon that looks very much like a full IDE.
About 7 years ago I used KDevelop that was shipped with KDE. I found it quite good back than, and I hope it also improved with the time. I found it quite comparable to VC++ 6 at this time.
It also contains Qt support, if you are in need for some GUI toolkit.
Depends, Code::Blocks is good, Eclipse is very nice too, but you will need a very good computer. In my opinion the best choice iss gcc, gdb and ViM or Gedit.
My buddies from work use Eclipse + Scons, they also use Valgrind(spelling?) for tracking memory leaks and such.
Many of the IDE features you listed were debugger features. The ddd (Data Display Debugger) debugger is quite a nice GUI wrapper for gdb, allowing graphical representation of data structures, a non-crappy source listing window (ie. unlike the l command of gdb where you don't get context), and also allows you to use any and all native gdb commands directly if desired.
Have a look at CodeLite. It's available for Ubuntu and Fedora out of the box and even for Windows and Mac. So you can have the same IDE on different platforms.
We tried Eclipse and NetBeans but left them due to their huge CPU and memory usage. We have a development server and all the developers connect to it via RDC. Thats why these IDEs miserably failed in our model.
So, we looked for some native IDE. Found CodeBlocks to be very good and super fast. We sort of settled on it but later found CodeLite and liked it better than CodeBlocks.
I just seeing this question after 12+ years. AnyHow I just writing my answer. I personally use Quincy IDE for C and C++ development. it is very lite weight and debugging watch list is very much good and easy to use. I'm just attaching the link to the site. try it.
But you have to install it with wine.
Quincy <-- Click here
Currently I`m using Visual Studio for writing code in C++. But it seems so weighty that I decided to switch for another one, preferably free, not so strict to system resources (I mean memory, of course) as VS to learn libraries, such as Boost and Qt. What compiler do you suggest?
I'd suggest using Visual Studio's compiler from the command-line. You get the same high-quality compiler, without the resource-hogging IDE.
Although the IDE is pretty good too, and probably worth the resources it uses.
Code::blocks is exactly what you are after. You can can download it here: http://www.codeblocks.org/downloads/5
Choose the version with the mingw compiler bundled with it (Windows port of GCC). You can switch between that and the VC++ compiler as and when you like.
Code::Blocks has all the stuff you want, debugger integration, code completion, class browser, todo list etc. etc. It even import visual C++ projects.
Don't use Dev C++ which has already been recommended. It's very very old and outdated.
If you want to learn unix tools download and install cygwin It's a good set of tools but a full install takes up 5 or 6 gigs because so much is included.
There is always Digital Mars. Also, you can freely download Microsoft WDK
which comes with their C/C++ compiler and command-line build system.
You will be hard-pressed to find an IDE as capable as MS VS. It is incredibly feature-rich.
However, if you just want command line compiling and linking it can do that too.
GCC is also an option.
Please note that you do not need another compiler or IDE to use boost libraries. I wouldn't replace Visual Studio with any other IDE/compiler, at least not on Windows. Installing Cygwin or SUA (better than Cygwin, closer to the Windows Kernel) will only be a pain just for what you are trying to reach.
Try to minimize the memory usage by disabling unnecessary things, keep the amount of open source files small, use an alternative to document explorer to find help (your browser on msdn will do). Besides that, I wouldn't call a few ten megabytes of memory a high usage. As long as it doesn't slow your system down there is not a real issue.
A better idea would be to upgrade your computer rather than to replace something powerful with something that you don't know.
Seriously there is no real alternative to Ms's compiler on Windows. All the others are OK if you can't spring for Visual Studio or if you are just doing hobbyist work. Cygwin can be a pain to deal with.
If you don't want the IDE as someone else suggested just use the command-line compiler.
I've found VS to be quite good for doing Boost + Qt work. Especially if you have the Qt + VS integration tool. You get a GUI designer and respectable Qt project management tools.
If you are looking for a compiler that uses fewer system resources than the MS ones, you'll probably find that most modern compilers that are able to compile a good part of or almost everything in Boost will be quite heavy on system resources, both processor usage and memory consumption. To a certain extent that's just par for the course when it comes to C++.
That said, I do like to have a second compiler around if I'm writing portable code as it's a lot easier to iron out portability issues when you can ensure that the code compiles in different environments. If you want to do all that on Windows, may Cygwin is worth a look. However it does seem that the GCC you get with Cygwin is not exactly what you'd call up to date.
The aforementioned Digital Mars compilers are well worth a look, Walter Bright (the guy behind them) has been writing C++ compilers for a long time and they're pretty good. I have used them off and on since the early nineties and I've always been happy with them. Not to mention that they always seemed noticeably faster than the Microsoft offerings, but I haven't got any recent measurements to back that up.
At the end of the day, most third-party tool vendors on Windows tend to target the MS environment so if you're writing C++ code professionally and need/want tools like leak detectors, you pretty much need to be able to build with the MS compilers, even if they aren't your main development environment.
I sugget , Netbeans.org
NetBeans IDE , download the Cygwin , follow one tutorial from http://www.netbeans.org for C++ confuguration at Netbeans IDE , just 2 steps.. and u are ok
autocomplete (faster than VS')
classes
and all... you want xD
It needs to mention about DevCpp. It is a simple UI wrap for gcc compiler (oh my, it is sounds like a tautology). It provides lightweight IDE but not so stable (so, its IntelliSense is somewhat buggy).
If you use Qt why not use their IDE, QtCreator, there is compiler, debugger and GUI designer. All comes in one nice package and works on Windows, Mac and Linux.
In my opinion it's better than Code::Blocks (also based on MinGW/GCC).