Favorite IDE

[Tuffywub]

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.

[eXpl0it3r]

I use a mix, but mostly Code::Blocks.

Btw. it's Qt and not QT and one pronounces it like "cute".

[Rhimlock]

I started with Code::Blocks and also tried Eclipse and Netbeans.

But I'm using QtCreator now and keep it that way :-)

[Tank]

GNU/Linux is missing in that list, I'm choosing text editor then.

[ChronicRat]

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.

[eXpl0it3r]

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.

[Nexus]

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, seriously ) 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?

[FRex]

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.

[binary1248]

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.

[wintertime]

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.
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.

[FRex]

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.

[AlejandroCoria]

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.

[Tank]

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, 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. (I indeed use it in my Visual C# installation; it's worth a try!)

Edit:
@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.

[Nexus]

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

[Oldie]

Using gedit, that comes with GNOME in Debian Wheezy. So badass indeed.

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.