C++ beginner

[rto]

Alright, so we just started usign cpp in our computer programming class and the teacher told us that a good compiler to use would be Bloodshed Dev-Cpp however, i would like to, if possible, do all of my cpp through notepad just as i did with my java work.

Is this possible? if so where would i download the files i need?

[md]

You can definitely write code in notepad!

You will need a compiler though, and MinGW is probably what you want. It's the GCC ported to windows. Then you just need to compile from the command line (methinks there is a topic on that somewhere).

Dev-Cpp is a horrible IDE, and really aught not to ever be recommended. If you do want to use an IDE on windows use Visual Studio - it's free for students and it is the best IDE available for windows.

[DemonWasp]

It's possible to write all of your code through a simple text-editor. In fact, it's a good learning experience.

You will need a compiler (similar to javac), and not a whole lot else (to get started, anyway). There are plenty of free compilers, but g++ is a particularly good one.

However, I must strongly caution you to NOT use Notepad. Notepad is probably the worst text editor ever created, and will make your programming life much, much harder. If you want to use a simple text-editor, use Notepad++ (http://notepad-plus.sourceforge.net/uk/site.htm) as a bare minimum, or Vim or Emacs if you really want to learn what a text-editor is. Any of these will provide color-coding and a few other neat features that will make coding WAY easier.

[Unforgiven]

DemonWasp @ Tue Dec 09, 2008 12:11 pm wrote:

However, I must strongly caution you to NOT use Notepad. Notepad is probably the worst text editor ever created, and will make your programming life much, much harder. If you want to use a simple text-editor, use Notepad++ (http://notepad-plus.sourceforge.net/uk/site.htm) as a bare minimum, or Vim or Emacs if you really want to learn what a text-editor is. Any of these will provide color-coding and a few other neat features that will make coding WAY easier.

Seconded. Sounds like the guy has written some code before, so he should use whatever works best for him, but I'd really recommend at least having syntax highlighting. It just keeps a simple typo from becoming a major issue sometimes, when you hit : instead of ;, and suddenly nothing compiles. Sure you can find it and fix it without, but if the highlighting warns you immediately because it all looks wrong, that's more time worrying about what you're writing, and less time on trivial mis-typed characters.

[wtd]

Syntax highlighting is much less an issue than line numbers.

[md]

Personally I use gedit as my text editor. vi is great on the command line... but emacs is the worst abomination ever

[[Gandalf]]

Note that whatever you choose as your text editor, if you're working on a computer that already has Dev-C++ (the IDE) installed, it usually binds itself to a MinGW (the compiler) installation. All you have to do is locate that and use as you would any version of GCC. However, sadly, last I checked MinGW is a bit behind on porting the latest versions of GCC, so you'll probably be stuck with something a bit out of date.

[wtd]

You'll at least get GCC 4.x, which is perfectly suitable for learning.

[rto]

I have successfuly dl'ed and installed notepad++ but i have one problem. okk so i tried to get minGW HOWEVER, it is saying that I have to download and install some files .. THIS ISNT WORKING, during the install it is aborting and giving me an error message 'Installation UNSUCCESSFUL" any ideasS?

[DemonWasp]

Please give a more specific error message. Tell us exactly what phase in the installation it got to, what files it wants you to download, and what the error message is.

Alternately, try doing what it says.

[[Gandalf]]

Double check that it's not a double installation problem, as I mentioned in my last post. That's probably not it though.

[rto]

Sorry i took so long replying, here is exactly what it says:

Installation Aborted
The installation was not comlpeted successfully

AND in the box :

Downloading gcc-ada-3.4.5-20060117-1.tar.gz
Downloading gcc-java-3.4.5-20060017-1.tar.gz
Downloading gcc-objc-3.4.5-20060117-1.tar.gz
Downloading mingw32-make-3.81-2.tar.gz
Create folder: C:\Program Files
Extract: C:\Program Files\installed.ini... 100%
Extractign ming-runtime-3.14.tar.gz
Unable to create directory C:
untgz::extract-d'C:\Program Files' - z 'H:\mingw-runtime-3.14.tar.gz'
tgz_extract: bad header checksum
Error: Failure reading from tarball

So thers my error ..

[DemonWasp]

It's trying to extract from 'H:\mingw-runtime-3.14.tar.gz' and it's finding a corrupt tarball.

- Do you have a drive H?
- Does drive H have sufficient free space? Is drive H writable?
- Why is it downloading into H:\ instead of C:\Temp\ ?

[S_Grimm]

The H:\ Drive is a networked Hard Drive. I've seen his setup before. The H:\ Drive is something like 500 gb and only half full.

[rto]

Edit: Decided to try downloading C++ as mentioned earlier in the posts and this worked excellent thanks to everybody who helped out