newbie question

[Neil]

Old dog (mainframe assembler) , learning new tricks.

Just come back from a C programming course and I would like to write some
stuff at home, as well as at work. If I were to buy "Microsoft Visual C++
..Net Standard", is this going to do what I want - i.e. provide a
development/debug environment for C code, while I continue to get to grips
with it? I guess at some stage I might want to progress to C++, but C is
enough of a challenge at the moment. Just want to check that this C++
product will also compile C, and I really don't know what the .Net bit is
about at all.

What I think we use at work (MS. Visual C++ Studio?) seems to be
discontinued.

Many thanks.

 

[Allan Bruce]

Old dog (mainframe assembler) , learning new tricks.

Just come back from a C programming course and I would like to write some
stuff at home, as well as at work. If I were to buy "Microsoft Visual C++
.Net Standard", is this going to do what I want - i.e. provide a
development/debug environment for C code, while I continue to get to grips
with it? I guess at some stage I might want to progress to C++, but C is
enough of a challenge at the moment. Just want to check that this C++
product will also compile C, and I really don't know what the .Net bit is
about at all.

What I think we use at work (MS. Visual C++ Studio?) seems to be
discontinued.

Many thanks.

<OT>
MS Visual C++ will compile C code, and in my opinion is a very good IDE
(Integrated Development Environment). It has built-in documentation to
almost every function and type - including the thousands of MS specific
ones. If you don't know what a function does, or can't remember the
arguements, then click on the function and press F1 and the extensive MSDN
help page comes up.
</OT>
Allan

 

[Malcolm]

If I were to buy "Microsoft Visual C++ .Net Standard", is this going to
do what I want - i.e. provide a development/debug environment for C
code, while I continue to get to grips with it?

It is an excellent product. The main disadvantage is that it is a bit
expensive. As with most software, whilst you can do the basics easily
(compile "Hello World"), it can get very fiddly setting up more advanced
options.

 

[Dr Justice]

Hi Neil!

Before you invest in the MS product, it may be worth checking out
one of the open/free C/C++ environments.

If you're on Windows, MinGW or DJGPP are complete packages
based on gcc. You can get open/free IDE's to run them from too,
although you may want to use the tools directly while learning.

DJ
--

 

[Roman Ziak]

Hi Neil!

Before you invest in the MS product, it may be worth checking out
one of the open/free C/C++ environments.

If you're on Windows, MinGW or DJGPP are complete packages
based on gcc. You can get open/free IDE's to run them from too,
although you may want to use the tools directly while learning.

I have heard this many times and I still have to see an open source
development tool for Windows, which will be even comparable (stability,
features, documentation, documentation, etc, ... and documentaion again) ...

VC++ 2003 .NET Standard 2003 goes for $93 (US) on amazon.ca and that is all
most people need for decent developing. We (team of 5) switched from Borland
and we grasped it quite quickly. C++ conformance is very good, although you
may find some "bug-features" as VC++ tries to be backward compatible with
previous buggy versions and thus with trilions lines of code already written
out there.

I would compare it to GCC, but better (can create smaller executables
option, better optimization). The Standard version does not have full
optimizing compiler, but for beginner ... who cares.

Do not worry about .NET. The compiler generates normal X86 code and regular
executables.


Other sources of (free) compilers for Windows:

---

lcc-win: http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~lcc-win32/

C Compiler with some C++ features. Did not use it so much, but it seems to
be decent.

---

Digital Mars C++ Compiler, quite decent self contained small package, little
doc, no IDE
http://www.digitalmars.com/download/dmcpp.html

---

Borland, decent compiler, little buggy IDE

command line version of newest C++ compiler:
http://www.borland.com/products/downloads/download_cbuilder.html
Turbo C 2.01, C compiler with IDE (DOS):
http://bdn.borland.com/article/0,1410,20841,00.html
Turbo C++ 1.01, C++ compiler with IDE (DOS):
http://bdn.borland.com/article/0,1410,21751,00.html

They also have enterprise trial of C++ Builder 6

---

Microsoft Visual C++ Optimizing Compiler, same as with Visual Studio,
command line, without Win32 SDK (can be downloaded)
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...9d-40bb-49fd-9cb0-4bfa122fa91b&DisplayLang=en

---

And finally GCC, I use Dev-Cpp from http://www.bloodshed.net/devcpp.html
Comes with GCC and IDE.



For GUI C++ programming for Windows, I would not use anything else than
Borland or Microsoft tools. Unless you like writing a lot of LOCs.

 

[Chris Williams]

Old dog (mainframe assembler) , learning new tricks.

Just come back from a C programming course and I would like to write some
stuff at home, as well as at work. If I were to buy "Microsoft Visual C++
.Net Standard", is this going to do what I want - i.e. provide a
development/debug environment for C code, while I continue to get to grips
with it? I guess at some stage I might want to progress to C++, but C is
enough of a challenge at the moment. Just want to check that this C++
product will also compile C, and I really don't know what the .Net bit is
about at all.

What I think we use at work (MS. Visual C++ Studio?) seems to be
discontinued.

Many thanks.

There is also Microsoft Visual C++ Express; which is free. It doesn't
have all the features of the full Microsoft Visual Studio but should
provide a good introduction to the premier development environment on MS
Windows without a big investment.

 

[jacob navia]

news:[email protected]... [snip]

Other sources of (free) compilers for Windows:

---

lcc-win: http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~lcc-win32/

C Compiler with some C++ features. Did not use it so much, but it seems to
be decent.

Thanks Roman

jacob

 

[Dan Pop]

Old dog (mainframe assembler) , learning new tricks.

Just come back from a C programming course and I would like to write some
stuff at home, as well as at work. If I were to buy "Microsoft Visual C++
.Net Standard", is this going to do what I want - i.e. provide a
development/debug environment for C code, while I continue to get to grips
with it? I guess at some stage I might want to progress to C++, but C is
enough of a challenge at the moment. Just want to check that this C++
product will also compile C, and I really don't know what the .Net bit is
about at all.

You may want to consider CygWin, probably the best of the free options for
Windows. It has excellent C89 support and excellent diagnostics
(gcc -ansi -pedantic -O -Wall), which is, by far, the most important
thing to a beginner. Reasonable support for many C99 features, too,
if you ever decide to play with the new features of the language.

Dan

 

[Dan Pop]

news:[email protected]... [snip]

Other sources of (free) compilers for Windows:

---

lcc-win: http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~lcc-win32/

C Compiler with some C++ features. Did not use it so much, but it seems to
be decent.

Thanks Roman

jacob

Ever heard about private email? In your humble opinion, when is a
private email reply the best way of responding to a post?

Dan