Favorite IDE

[Jebbs]

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.

[FRex]

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. I remember Visual 10 or 11 had problem with it, tried parsing them as XML.

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.

Is there something to ease debugging with vim? Like jump to specific lines, step, skip, show locals and globals values?

[eXpl0it3r]

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).

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).

[Tank]

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.

[Excellium]

Sublime Text 2, an incredible code editor !

[Grimshaw]

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

[ChronicRat]

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.

[wintertime]

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.

[Nexus]

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.

[FRex]

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.

[wintertime]

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.

[Nexus]

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

[FRex]

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?

[Nexus]

But that's what they degrade to [...]

Nobody does that here, can you stop derailing the discussion?

[MorleyDev]

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.