Help learning C and choosing a complier

[Junkhead]

That really does not make sense...Are you sure it's MinGW you downloaded? MinGW makes no network connections at any time, and has no network functionality built into it.

Could you perhaps post a screenshot?

[Mazer]

I believe he's using the installer which uses a GUI to find and install the desired components for you.

But I don't know what to say about the connection dropping problem

[Junkhead]

Ah, in that case, it might be retrieving the install files over the internet, and maybe routing difficulties are causing the problem.

A screenshot would help quite a bit!

[Mazer]

I just installed MinGW using that installer, if you get that network error message just hit retry and it should go. I had it pop up again later on but after hitting retry the installation completed and everything seems alright.

[btiffin]

For learnng; Check out Ch. Ch is an embeddable and interactive C/C++ from http://www.softintegration.com/

I've only tried the Standard Edition; but the Professional Edition is free for Academic Use. I use it for short experiments, exploring (ok, at my age ... it's more reminder than exploring) and verifying snippets before posting. I can't say I've used it for any large applications but I sure wish it was around when I had my first reads through K&R and Stroustrup.

Ch is more than just a C/C++ compiler, it's a true C shell. As a bonus, it comes with a nice subset of Unix commands on the Ch Windows console. The student/professional edition comes with a nice plotting subsystem.

Note; There is a free download Standard Edition, but Ch is a commercial effort. Standard is Free for Commercial or non-Comercial Use but is not redistributable (if my legalese is up to snuff). Multiple platforms.

Cheers,
Brian Tiffin

[OneOffDriveByPoster]

There is also EiC, but IIRC, the included library is very buggy. I think it was printf or scanf. Everyone knows that glibc has a buggy scanf though.