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TheHolyCatfish
Pretty, Pretty Fairy Princess
Joined: 21 Jul 2003
Posts: 8
Location: USA
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 Posted: Wed Jul 23, 2003 1:03 am Post subject: Where can i get a good C++ compiler |
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i want to learn c++ verry badly.
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Raiko
I wanna be a ballerina!
Joined: 22 Jul 2003
Posts: 24
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| Posted: Wed Jul 23, 2003 1:23 am Post subject: |
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Define good :)
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BigManJones
Scholar
Joined: 22 Mar 2003
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Jihgfed Pumpkinhead
Stephen Hawking
Joined: 21 Jan 2003
Posts: 259
Location: Toronto, Canada
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| Posted: Wed Jul 23, 2003 2:48 am Post subject: C++ Starting Out |
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If you're just starting out and don't need an IDE, I recommend Borland's command-line compiler. It's much faster than gcc, which I found was helpful when starting out, because then I could compile/run frequently, and catch errors in the bud.
Be warned that if you don't have an IDE, that means you'll have to use the command prompt, also known as the DOS box, so if that sounds bad, go with BigMan Jones' suggestion.
Need tutorial suggestions, or do you have a book, some schooling, or whatever to see you through?
Anyway, if you have questions, you can post them in the Development Forum. Good luck.
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Adam
Mage
Joined: 30 Dec 2002
Posts: 416
Location: Australia
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| Posted: Wed Jul 23, 2003 6:38 am Post subject: |
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Why do you want to learn c++?
If youve used Qbasic and such and need more power then yes, c++ would be a good step up. But if you just wanted to make a game and think less about the code, or havent coded in any other language, i wouldn't be starting straight out on c++.
Then again, sdl seems easy to implement and i assume allgero (if i spelt it right) would be too.
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TheHolyCatfish
Pretty, Pretty Fairy Princess
Joined: 21 Jul 2003
Posts: 8
Location: USA
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| Posted: Wed Jul 23, 2003 12:18 pm Post subject: |
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whats an ide?
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Rainer Deyke
Demon Hunter
Joined: 05 Jun 2002
Posts: 672
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| Posted: Wed Jul 23, 2003 1:16 pm Post subject: |
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IDE = integrated development environment. Basically a text editor and a compiler rolled into one: you get a text edit window, type your code, and hit a button to compile the thing, all in the same program. That's a vast oversimplification, but I think you'll know an IDE when you see it.
Personally I recommend MinGW (a windows port of gcc) because the Borland compiler has fairly poor C++ language support. There's also an IDE for MinGW called Dev-C++, but I don't use it.
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Raiko
I wanna be a ballerina!
Joined: 22 Jul 2003
Posts: 24
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| Posted: Wed Jul 23, 2003 1:52 pm Post subject: |
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I would suggest SDL over Allegro anyday.
It's really hard to forget to do something in SDL. Allegro goes nuts if you forget END_OF_MAIN() after main
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Rainer Deyke
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Joined: 05 Jun 2002
Posts: 672
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| Posted: Wed Jul 23, 2003 4:33 pm Post subject: |
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| Raiko wrote: | | I would suggest SDL over Allegro anyday. |
I would second that, except that I have no experience with Allegro. I took one look at the API and ran away screaming. I'd rather be able to see with one look if a function belongs to a third party library or is one of my own, and with Allegro I'm not able to do that.
I like SDL. It's small, it's simple, it's clean, and it does everything I want it to do. At least when combined with the add-on libraries SDL_mixer and SDL_image.
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Raiko
I wanna be a ballerina!
Joined: 22 Jul 2003
Posts: 24
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| Posted: Wed Jul 23, 2003 4:34 pm Post subject: |
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Besides.. it was written by a now Blizzard employee :)
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Jihgfed Pumpkinhead
Stephen Hawking
Joined: 21 Jan 2003
Posts: 259
Location: Toronto, Canada
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| Posted: Wed Jul 23, 2003 6:33 pm Post subject: Compilers and Libs |
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| Rainer Deyke wrote: | | Personally I recommend MinGW (a windows port of gcc) because the Borland compiler has fairly poor C++ language support. There's also an IDE for MinGW called Dev-C++, but I don't use it. |
What do you mean? I certainly agree that Borland's is laxer about enforcing standards, with all sorts of "helpful features" which sometimes drive me insane, but I've never found a time when I've done something the right way and it's not compiled properly.
Really, though, I recommend using both compilers. Borland's is the one I use regularly, because, as I said, it's much faster. Every once in a while I'll do a thorough run-through with MingW, re-compiling all my source (just in case my makefile is screwed up somewhere) with the -Wall option to make sure all my code is kosher. I do recommend Borland for a complete newbie, in part also because it's easier to set up; although an advantage to gcc (which I hadn't thought of before) is that everyone is familiar with it, and the error messages it produces, so it will probably be easier to find help with it. Ah, well, your choice.
As to SDL vs. Allegro, it's really a matter of preference. Personally, I wrap all my library functions anyway, so I hardly ever have to deal with the API directly (I love inline functions).
One nice thing about Allegro, the reason I use it, is that the documentation seems much nicer, much more explicit and to my taste, than other libraries. This is probably why it has found so much favour among people who are just learning to program.
But I'm certainly not going to recommend one over the other, as I hardly have any experience with SDL (I intend to at some point, though; just a matter of time). Just saying it's not all bad.
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Rainer Deyke
Demon Hunter
Joined: 05 Jun 2002
Posts: 672
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| Posted: Wed Jul 23, 2003 6:47 pm Post subject: Re: Compilers and Libs |
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| Jihgfed Pumpkinhead wrote: | | What do you mean? I certainly agree that Borland's is laxer about enforcing standards, with all sorts of "helpful features" which sometimes drive me insane, but I've never found a time when I've done something the right way and it's not compiled properly. |
I mean that the compiler is fundamentally broken. Borland passes a mere 77% of the Boost regression tests. Only Visual C++ 6.0 is worse at 74%. gcc passes 94%, and the failures are generally less serious and more susceptible to workarounds.
For the record, I own Visual C++ 6.0, and I consider it completely useless. I never seriously tried the Borland compiler. I compile regularily with MinGW and Visual C++ .net.
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Jihgfed Pumpkinhead
Stephen Hawking
Joined: 21 Jan 2003
Posts: 259
Location: Toronto, Canada
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| Posted: Wed Jul 23, 2003 7:06 pm Post subject: Borland vs. MingW |
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Alright, I understand. I'll continue to use Borland's, for now, as it's served well so far; if it ever chokes on something, though, I'll be the first to abandon it, believe me. I've never had the problems people seem to have with MSVC. The greatest problem I've had is with some odd macros taking over sometimes, but a couple of #undefs take care of it.
There are still some aspects of C++ I haven't started to tackle, yet, though, notably namespaces.
But if Rainer says Borland's a crazy compiler, I'm not going to spoil anyone just getting into C++'s head with it. Go with MingW, as recommended by everyone else.
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TheHolyCatfish
Pretty, Pretty Fairy Princess
Joined: 21 Jul 2003
Posts: 8
Location: USA
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| Posted: Wed Jul 23, 2003 8:04 pm Post subject: |
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are there any good books on learning c++ that would help me with makeing a game.? and i dl alot of thoes complyers. i think im gunna use minGW
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Jihgfed Pumpkinhead
Stephen Hawking
Joined: 21 Jan 2003
Posts: 259
Location: Toronto, Canada
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| Posted: Wed Jul 23, 2003 8:49 pm Post subject: Thinking in C++ |
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I would recommend Thinking in C++ Vols. 1 & 2 by Bruce Eckel. It's free, downloadable, and fairly comprehensive. It may be hard to get into if you don't know any C (the chapter on C is meant to be a brief review), but if you do, it's great. The index is particularly nice.
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