Compiler advice?

[bweaver4usenet]

Please help me choose a compiler and environment for commercial
software development in C++... Either a compiler I currently own, can
upgrade to, or something else entirely. I'm primarily interested in
standards adherance, debugging support, and fast code, plus I'm
somewhat price-conscious. I'd be developing for Windows, but would like
to be able to build apps for Mac and possibly Linux without too much
rework. Either I'm googling wrong, or comparative compiler reviews and
benchmarks have gone out of fashion.

I currently own three C++ compilers: VC++ 6.0 (windows), an old copy of
Metrowerks Codewarrior (mac, cross-compile to windows), and IBM
VisualAge C++ (os/2). Some options I have found are

* Upgrade to VS .NET 2003 - expensive, overkill (C#, VB, etc.)
* Buy VC++ .NET 2003 Std - cheap, not optimizing compiler
* Download VC++ Toolkit 2003 - free, no commercial restriction?
* Upgrade to latest WinMac version of Codewarrior
* gcc ?
* icc ?
* others ?

Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!

 

[Victor Bazarov]

Please help me choose a compiler and environment for commercial
software development in C++... [...]

Even considering that you've narrowed it down to Win/Mac/Linux
development, the choices are many and the discussion may end up
being a "my compiler is better than yours" type of thing. So,
beware.

I'd recommend Intel C/C++ compiler for Winux and update your Mac
version to the latest of whatever you've got. Intel integrates
with your IDE (VC++ v6) and on Linux you can use any other IDE,
I am certain. At least you'll have the same compiler and not have
to deal with incompatibilities between Win/Linux codes (although
you will still have plenty, probably).

You can still get the Visual C++ v8 beta if you hurry, it has its
IDE (and the debugger), and G++ on Linux is also a decent compiler,
which will leave Mac, but I heard that nowadays you can use G++
there too. Ask in a MacOS newsgroup.

In general, you should get as good a compiler as you can afford,
try not to be cheap when it comes to tools for commercial work.

V

 

[Lionel B]

Please help me choose a compiler and environment for commercial
software development in C++... Either a compiler I currently own, can
upgrade to, or something else entirely. I'm primarily interested in
standards adherance, debugging support, and fast code, plus I'm
somewhat price-conscious. I'd be developing for Windows, but would like
to be able to build apps for Mac and possibly Linux without too much
rework. Either I'm googling wrong, or comparative compiler reviews and
benchmarks have gone out of fashion.

I suspect gcc might give you the least pain for cross-platform development.
It's also good on standards compliance and optimization and integrates with
the gdb debugger, gprof profiler, etc. And it's free!

Of course gcc is not an IDE; there are, however, IDEs with which it will
integrate, at least on Windows and Linux (don't know about Mac). gcc can
also function as a "cross-compiler", so you could do all your development on
one platform - under one IDE, say - and target other platforms.

Personally, I favour gcc + a good programmer's editor + (Gnu) make (possibly
via autoconf/automake) as a development environment.

Regards,