SFML community forums
General => General discussions => Topic started by: Tuffywub on November 13, 2013, 05:27:00 am
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Hey everyone, I was just wondering what the SFML community used to develop things. I personally use Visual Studio (express), but I thought getting a new poll on this would be fun, or even informative for beginners struggling to choose.
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I use a mix, but mostly Code::Blocks. ;)
Btw. it's Qt and not QT and one pronounces it like "cute". :D
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I started with Code::Blocks and also tried Eclipse and Netbeans.
But I'm using QtCreator now and keep it that way :-)
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GNU/Linux is missing in that list, I'm choosing text editor then. ;)
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Visual Studio is the best. I tried all from the list except XCode. Second is Code::Blocks, but i hate it sometimes. All java-based IDE are strange mix of good ideas and awful realisation.
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GNU/Linux is missing in that list
Well it's not exactly an integrated development environment, unless you say the sole purpose of Linux is development. ;)
Visual Studio is the best. I tried all from the list except XCode. Second is Code::Blocks, but i hate it sometimes. All java-based IDE are strange mix of good ideas and awful realisation.
Not a fan of Java-based IDEs either (slow and resource heavy experience), but I'd love to get a proper KDevelop version on Windows (the official port was bad last I tried). Qt Creator seems really great, unfortunately it handles projects in a not so intuitive way, but I like the CMake integration part.
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Definitely Visual Studio. I have yet to find a C++ IDE that can even remotely compete. With Visual Assist X, it's even more awesome :)
I used Code::Blocks a lot when porting projects to Linux, and I don't like it. There are so many usability issues, a lot of things that one would just expect to work simply don't. Examples are the dialogs to add files (no drag&drop support, questionable limitations such as the split into "add files" and "add files recursively"), the debugger sometimes not responding when continuing from pause, the buggy autocompletion, the list of compiler flags that are incompatible with the g++ version, ... (and the logo (http://wiki.codeblocks.org/images/c/c7/Cb_splash.png), seriously :D) Maybe they fixed some stuff meanwhile, but this IDE has left a pretty bad impression on me. Of course not least because VS sets high standards in this respect. The only unfortunate thing at the Microsoft compiler was lacking C++11 support, but with VS 2013 they've regained a lot of lost ground again. I was very happy to see even std::make_unique() from C++14 ;)
What do people who work on Linux and are no hardcore Vim/Emacs hackers recommend? Does anybody have greater experience with Geany?
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Well it's not exactly an integrated development environment, unless you say the sole purpose of Linux is development. ;)
It's a joke that 'Linux/Unix is an IDE' when someone asks for one, like here: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/24109/c-ide-for-linux
Visual Studio - was using on Windows, sadly there is no (obvious) way to make it use g++, it has problems with c++11, comes with compiler super tied to it, it's Windows only, upgrading from one to another is a chore, costs a lot, dreamspark versions come with string attached, heavy and sloooow completion without Visual Assist X. :/
Code::Blocks - I just don't like it, I don't know why. (Roommate is peeking past my shoulder and told me to say he likes it).
Xcode - I'm not on Mac so no
Eclipse - Same reason as C::B.
Netbeans - really liked it, was great, but latest one has problem parsing some includes from standard(vector) and one before that hadn't parsing c++11 features because of #ifdef blocks. It's a bit slow but that's ok considering superior completion, configurable auto formatting and so on. I'll probably get back to it sometime in the future. Also has PHP, Java and HTML5 + JS (and other) features so if I want to learn that I can without switching IDEs.
CodeLite - 'using' now, kind of ok, not as ugh to me as C::B and Eclipse, not as feature complete as NB but still ok.
KDevelop - I had no idea what to do at all with it, only IDE ever I couldn't just pick up and get to work. And it pulled 70 mb of KDE/Qt stack dependencies on my Xfce install. Also slightly tied to Linux.
Qt Creator - too bare, but really nice, used to use it a bit before I found NB
Dev-C++ - a tiny bit, also at my exam at end of high school, because other choice was C::B and I didn't want C::B.
Plain Text Editor (Badass) - Usually not, just (g)vim for one file program or config files or Lua.
Other:
Geany - sometimes for one file programs and for browsing code I don't want to compile.
Solaris Studio - might try it, it's technically for Solaris, OL and RHEL, lacking Mac and Windows is one downside compared to NB but it might work for Fedora. I keep forgetting to try it.
MonoDevelop - not really.. might use it if I learn C#, would definitely use it if Unit3D had editor for Linux.
Lazarus - technically not c++ IDE but gdb launched to debug Object Pascal code in it can step into my c++ code in .so via C calls and it has highlighting and some completion.
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What do people who work on Linux and are no hardcore Vim/Emacs hackers recommend?
At my university, you see a lot of Linux users having some form of multi-terminal console open along side their favourite text editor. I go this way myself when working on my laptop and it's easy to understand: you can control things much easier with the keyboard than the touchpad. Text editors might not support the things that IDEs provide such as autocomplete, add new file, etc. but once you write code so fast that the autocomplete takes longer to suggest something, it gets rather annoying and I tend to turn it off no matter what I use. Adding files is just a matter of 1 command on the console, staging files to git is also another simple command. I used to be a mouse+keyboard programmer, but now I actually loath every time I need to take my hands off of the keyboard to perform something.
It isn't really a good idea suggesting your favourite IDE to beginners, or implying that it might be more or less beginner-friendly. There is too much subjective bias that it might even be detrimental for them to try something you like. Depending on how they write code, what kind of habits they have, whether they are willing to adapt to new workflows and most importantly their aptitude in programming in general among other factors they will eventually find something that works for them. The best thing they can do is consequently try every single IDE (and editing method) they can find, even after they found something they like and keep in mind what they felt when using them. It is not uncommon for people to change the way they write code once they get better at programming merely because the old method is getting more in the way than helping.
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I actually quite like code::blocks and they had such a nice looking logo in 10.05, but for some weird reason changed it to that ugly thing in 12.11 when there were many better looking alternatives provided in their forum. :-X
The IDE making gdb crash sometimes is annoying me too. I think its some version incompatibility as its feeding text into and parsing the output from gdb. I guess we need to try some other version from the c::b forum, there was something about a python-based gdb being used which they did not explain or maybe some newer nightly got better with handling the debugger as I read they would be working on this.
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At my university, you see a lot of Linux users having some form of multi-terminal console open along side their favourite text editor. I go this way myself when working on my laptop and it's easy to understand: you can control things much easier with the keyboard than the touchpad. Text editors might not support the things that IDEs provide such as autocomplete, add new file, etc. but once you write code so fast that the autocomplete takes longer to suggest something, it gets rather annoying and I tend to turn it off no matter what I use. Adding files is just a matter of 1 command on the console, staging files to git is also another simple command. I used to be a mouse+keyboard programmer, but now I actually loath every time I need to take my hands off of the keyboard to perform something.
Terminal + Editor without touching the mouse is what I do on some my lessons but just because I don't need weird standard library names or any non standard libraries there. What what if you don't remember all symbols you need to type, or do you always learn completely all symbol names of a library beforehand and remember all semi_arcane_and_long std:: names? Also long paths, names and showing what the function return and signature is are rather nice too but missing from plain editors.
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I currently use Visual Studio Express, but by the university. When I get to choose my own IDE someday, probably look for one cross-platform, such as Code::Block.
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Well it's not exactly an integrated development environment, unless you say the sole purpose of Linux is development.
It's a joke apparently. But it's also true to some extent. Linux kinda follows the Unix philosophy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unix_philosophy), i.e. small modular programs for specific tasks. That means you choose the tools you want to use. It's definitely "harder" than installing an IDE, but it's also more flexible to the user's likings.
@Nexus:
Is it the auto-completion you like most in VS? It's indeed very nice and works quite good. I also know Visual Assist X from my VC++6 days when Microsoft's auto-completion was really bad.
However, and this also relates to FRex' post:
I don't use auto-completion, ever. Vim even provides it (called "omni-completion", which uses ctags as the database), yet it's not that intuitive and easy like in VS. But I just got used to having the docs open and remembering all the stuff. It surprisingly works quite good.
What do people who work on Linux and are no hardcore Vim/Emacs hackers recommend? Does anybody have greater experience with Geany?
A lot of people use and like KDevelop. Qt Creator is very minimal and works quite good, especially for Qt development (it has a designer etc.). But hey, you should definitely try out "hardcore hacking" with Vim (not emacs, the great OS lacking a good editor) -- but beware, it might result in installing this (http://visualstudiogallery.msdn.microsoft.com/59ca71b3-a4a3-46ca-8fe1-0e90e3f79329). ;) (I indeed use it in my Visual C# installation; it's worth a try!)
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@FRex
Take a look at this (http://www.vim.org/scripts/script.php?script_id=3302) if you are missing completion or other things in editors like Vim. There are tons of scripts that bring symbol lookups, symbol browsers, project tree browsers etc. to the editor.
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For me, the pure writing of the code is usually not the limiting factor, when talking about development time. I tend to spend a lot of time on thinking/sketching design, debugging, testing, profiling -- and in the case of games -- content creation and refinement. That's why I prefer a good balance of tools over a very sophisticated, but still very limited editor.
There are many great things at Visual Studio. Already the whole project management that keeps the list of files and allows easy configuration and selective builds. But that's not the unique part of VS. Functionality like graphical debugging, where you can just set breakpoints in any line and inspect arbitrarily complex values at runtime by hovering the mouse over them in the code, has proven invaluable for me. Autocompletion is great too. As FRex mentioned, it doesn't only save typing time, but can be used as an in-line documentation. It's much faster than a separate browser window with a HTML documentation, especially when you use multiple libraries and already know the rough functionality, but not the exact API. In particular, autocompletion is not just showing the list of methods when you type "."; that's what most tools do but still fail if more complex C++ code is involved. Visual Assist X works on a whole different level. It constantly assists you, using heuristics that take into account locality of declaration, expected types in specific contexts, often-used values such as true/false, as well as the most recently used symbols. Furthermore, library paths in #include directives are completed. Refactoring and inspection support is also very useful. It starts with renaming, but also includes method extraction, creation of corresponding declaration/definition, symbol search, call hierarchies, VA outline (hierarchical summary of symbols in file) -- loads of features that require semantic code analysis across files. Another example is the real-time recognition of many errors while typing. And of course there are smaller features like code snippets or "jump to definition" that make your life easier.
Just to elaborate a bit on what I meant with "I have yet to find a C++ IDE that can even remotely compete". Let alone editors ;)
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Using gedit, that comes with GNOME in Debian Wheezy. So badass indeed. ;D
I am working on a rather small project, so I can still manage things with gedit + make + gcc. But if I ever move to more complex projects, I may want to choose a more powerful text editor. I have never used vi for anything but simple config files at work.
For some reason, I am not much into IDE. I tried Code::Blocks once or twice, but I guess I prefer the flexibility of simple, free tools used together.
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The main one I use is Xamarin Studio, which is very much like VS, but has the plug in I like for my D programming.
I also use Sublime Text a lot and just set it up to run my build scripts.
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an in-line documentation
I'm not sure if I'm idealizing NB or remembering right but: NB shows comments for each method so if I'm typing win.d it'll show list with draw and display in it and when i select either with arrows it'll show signature AND entire pretty doxygen comment. I really might be projecting now. ;D I remember Visual 10 or 11 had problem with it, tried parsing them as XML.
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@FRex
Take a look at this if you are missing completion or other things in editors like Vim. There are tons of scripts that bring symbol lookups, symbol browsers, project tree browsers etc. to the editor.
Is there something to ease debugging with vim? Like jump to specific lines, step, skip, show locals and globals values?
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Is there something to ease debugging with vim? Like jump to specific lines, step, skip, show locals and globals values?
Yes with plugins (e.g. see here (http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3536600/do-you-debug-c-code-in-vim-how)).
With Vim you're essentially building your own IDE by utilizing various plugins. It requires quite a bit of configuring, but once you're done Vim is your own custom-built IDE, not to forget its text editing powers (that need even more time to conquer). ;)
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Nexus:
I see. You really seem to fully use VS' capabilities. :) You mentioned a lot of things I do never use (like the debugger, for example, except when the program crashes and I want to know what's going on, e.g. printing a backtrace or looking at variables) nor miss, but it still sounds interesting.
Other things are for sure available as separate tools. But I'm really not the right guy for that, as I'm working very minimally (and still effective in my very own opinion). I sometimes work with Visual Studio for some C# projects I have to do for work, and I'm always having hard times using it.
FRex:
I don't know. I only use the debugger for program crashes. I use unit testing for making sure my code works.
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Sublime Text 2, an incredible code editor ! :)
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I am with Visual Studio here.. It is a really powerful and polished tool..
The vanilla IDE without any addons has some unnecessary flaws already mentioned but plugins like VAX really make it one of the best IDE available... It disappoints me in very little, and now and then it crashes just while editing files losing me some progress for no reason, but what can I do, its still one of the best solutions.
When I don't use VS I usually use C::B but I am absolutely not a fan of it. Its pretty intuitive overally but the UI is a bit cranky and unpolished. Also I hate its project tree. Otherwise I am fine with it for programming less extensive projects!
And.. the worst IDE I ever used was XCode. I am sorry apple fanboys, but I just hate it and find it incredibly cranky and messy and not intuitive for a developer tool. Even though I find it pretty feature complete and interesting, its usage blows my nerves :)
Just my little opinion :D
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By the way, new VS 2013 Express finally has powerful enough syntax highlighting, so it really the best from all free IDEs now. And don't forget about C++11 - it almost full there.
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I noticed that in all such comparisons people asking about free IDE like for example VS Express, people using VS Pro+Visual Assist X+maybe other paid addons chime in to tell VS was very nice and that may be true, but its mixing apples with oranges.
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Why? It's a comparison of IDEs, not free IDEs. The fact that many people are not willing to pay money for good software doesn't matter. In many fields, open-source tools claim to compete with commercial ones (and often they suceed, g++ is a good example), so they deserve to be compared.
By the way, Sublime Text costs too. Some IDEs require a commercial operating system.
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Problem is it might end up in idiotic situation(here not really, with VS Express and Dreamspark for both VS and Windows) where people with pirated commercial software that costs A L.O.T. on a pirated Windows will bitch on open source for being slightly worse or not exact duplicate and giving exactly same UX as their tool... which is idiotic beyond belief because it degrades into tool vs. tool, no care for OS('Linux is for faggots!') or price('you can pirate anything you want!').
Google GIMP vs. Photoshop for quick reference of this...
My CL vote should go to NB now, I download NB 7.4 with just C/C++ module, it's just too nice, despite rough edges and speed. ;D
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The point I tried to make was not free vs paid, but different versions with different features and sometimes features of addons getting confused by calling everything VS without clarifying which version it is. And then possibly newbies thinking the restricted express version was much better than it is.
Most of the other companies like Watcom, Borland or Symantec seem to have given up on selling IDEs, after free of cost and open source compilers and IDEs were available. Thats why there's only VS left to compare. Its human nature to want things as cheap as possible. ;)
Yes, Sublime Text seems appealing to me, but if I can use Notepad++(what I used for programming my Ruby game in the projects subforum) or Programmers Notepad for free it gets difficult to justify sinking in money. That is especially after I got burned with paying about 250 (IIRC) for a cheaper subsidized student version of a buggy-as-hell, only half-implemented Borland C++ once.
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Problem is it might end up in idiotic situation [...]
We're nowhere near a flamewar, there have been quite objective and tolerant arguments in this thread. So please don't trigger it ;)
The point I tried to make was not free vs paid, but different versions with different features and sometimes features of addons getting confused by calling everything VS without clarifying which version it is. And then possibly newbies thinking the restricted express version was much better than it is.
You're right, but I have explicitly mentioned Visual Assist X. I wanted to show what Visual Studio really offers (since it's usually compared only superficially to other IDEs), and already the Express version provides a lot of this functionality. I also explained how VAX can further improve that experience. Everybody can decide on their own if the features are worth the money :)
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We're nowhere near a flamewar, there have been quite objective and tolerant arguments in this thread. So please don't trigger it ;)
But that's what they degrade to unless it's two paid or two open products, people pull arguments out of their ass that relate to price, conspiracies about crippling products to sell next versions, shitting on quality of code(that they don't know) and (perceived lack of) leadership, saying that open source code is less secure because attacker has it(which is bs: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kerckhoffs%27s_principle) and so on..
Try NetBeans and see how it compares to VS, does VS allow customizing code formatting of entire file?
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But that's what they degrade to [...]
Nobody does that here, can you stop derailing the discussion?
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Favourite? For editing, probably Visual Studio 2013 with Visual Assist X.
As a student I got a hefty discount on Visual Assist X. So far it's the best refactoring and coding tool for C++ I've found, although I did recently get access to the Resharper C++ Early Access. Whilst RC++ lacks some important features (for example it does not yet understand Variadic Templates), JetBrains know their stuff and I've already seen things in it that impress me enough to think it could easily become the principal refactoring tool for C++ in the future.
Likewise the upcoming C++ IDE from JetBrains is really the only thing I can see that could challenge Visual Studio for C++ editing for me, especially given it'll be cross platform. I already use IntelliJ for Java and Scala and love it (it's definitely the best IDE for Java by far) so I have some high expectations there.
If I'm on Linux, I'm usually working in the shell so honestly I just use Vim with a bunch of plugins for code completion and the like. I think the best actual IDEs I've found for C++ on Linux are either Eclipse of Code::Lite but neither were reliable enough for my tastes. Never got around to trying KDevelop.
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By the way, Sublime Text costs too. Some IDEs require a commercial operating system.
I do not agree about Sublime, you can use it freely and without any limit in time. But, even if it is my favorite tool for web things, I don't like it for compiled languages because it's NOT an IDE... It does not handle projects, it does not allow compilation. If you want to do so, you have a lot of plugins to install, and even so it's still not an IDE.
My fav is by far QtCreator, that is capable of auto-complete things from libs, other files and everything, as well as a very very helpul integrated Qt documentation.
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Sublime Text does cost. As you can read on their website, you can--evaluate--it without an enforced time limit, but the moment you start to use it continuously you need to buy a license, and it seems you do.
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Sublime Text does cost. As you can read on their website, you can--evaluate--it without an enforced time limit, but the moment you start to use it continuously you need to buy a license, and it seems you do.
I do have a licence for my pro work with Sublime, yes, but still you can use it freely, the term "continued" is a bit fuzzy. Anyway, the question is not about the interpretation of that word but the usage of the sofware. Plus, I highly recommand Sublime to everyone that want to do website coding (or any coding). I just prefer IDEs for compiled languages.
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I usually use XCode 4 for C++ projects, Eclipse for Java projects, and a text editor (specifically TextWrangler) for everything else. I'd say my favourite is definitely XCode.
I used Visual Studio back in ... 2004/5 or so? I think it might've been VS7, not sure. I'd say it was pretty good then; I've no idea what it's like now. I'd probably go with Code::Blocks when developing on Windows though, mainly because it's free. I tried it on Mac once, but it was literally unstable (kept crashing), so I'm not actually sure what it's like in practice.
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Well I use a plain text editor. It formats and colour-codes the text, has all usual text editor stuff, and it's mainly gedit on GNU/Linux and Notepad++ on Windows.
Project management, code completion, error checking while you write, and automated building with multiple build profiles. These are the advantages I see IDEs as having.
Project management isn't really necessary, I use a solid directory structure and store my project in a git repository.
Code completion would be nice (in fact there are plugins for it) but I've never cared enough to get it.
Error checking while you write is irritating and I'd turn it off. I've become very good at figuring out compiler and linker errors so I have little use for this.
Build management is great, but I am fine with a Makefile right now and will be fine with CMake or something if pushed to it.
I've noticed that people want to mention GNU/Linux as an IDE. It almost is, as what I describe (give or take the editor) is how most people on GNU/Linux manage projects. Still though, I think the 'plain text editor' option applies to these people.
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Qt creator on linux (and used it on windows a bit before that)
• debuggers (either gdb or microsoft's one on windows) integrate very well, breakpoints are a given, can check values at any level on the stack
• the usual, auto complete, refactoring, jumping to definition
• customize code style, syntax highlighting
• easy and full control of the build and run environments
• version control integrated, a git commit is a shortcut away, managing branches etc
• can use either qmake or cmake
• valgrind can also be run from within (though I 'm used to running that from the terminal)
No more hiccups than I had with visual studio.
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1 picture is worth 1000 words
(http://i40.tinypic.com/28lwbcl.png)
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1 picture is worth 1000 words
Perhaps to visual studio users, but as a Linux (and not Visual) user, I do not see any differences jumping to my eye with QtCreator. Can you add some more comments ?
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Perhaps to visual studio users, but as a Linux (and not Visual) user, I do not see any differences jumping to my eye with QtCreator. Can you add some more comments ?
Not sure, but I think he just wanted to communicate that he's using Visual Studio (with big green boxes). ;D
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he's using Visual Studio (with big green boxes). ;D
:)
And he's using int instead of size_t. =)
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If we're going pictures, what Visual Studio has going for it over all other C++ IDEs at the moment for me is summed up in this picture:
(http://i1087.photobucket.com/albums/j479/MorleyDev/vs2013_resharper_visualassistx_zps05af6689.png) (http://s1087.photobucket.com/user/MorleyDev/media/vs2013_resharper_visualassistx_zps05af6689.png.html)
It's a plugin, true (actually I use two for C++) but none-the-less that I can put the cursor over graphics::Texture and hit Alt+Enter and have that appear is nice...Are there any other C++ IDEs that offer this kind of thing, but perhaps have better C++11 support (the plugin doesn't recognise Variadics yet)?
I know a lot of code completion works via Clang nowadays, any refactoring tools leveraged that yet?