Best compiler

[tombert]

I was wondering what the best c/c++ compiler and ide is.

I personally love code::blocks, but my friends say that the VC++ compiler is well worth it. I have used borland's too, but I found the controls a bit to....fascist.


So, what do you guys think is the best?

[icemanfan]

I don't know what compiler is the best, but I use Quincy and it works fine for me. You get the occasional crash when you type a lot of code, so you have to save often. Also, Quincy does not come with support for GUIs. But the good thing about Quincy is that it's simple.

[Somelauw]

I haven't tried many, but read once (my source could be wikipedia) that for the Windows platform Borland and Microsofts compiler are the best.
The advantage of one made by Microsoft is that Microsoft has a bigger knowledge of how Windows works exactly.

I use Dev-cpp because it's userfriendly and free. The compiler itself is called Min-GW

[z05DSL3A]

There is a thread in the Lounge on this if you are interested.
http://www.cplusplus.com/forum/lounge/1305/

[Zaita]

Best compiler. That depends on what your trying to achieve. I use MingW (GCC 3.4.5) on Windows and Linux. I use it for cross-platform work.

My IDE is Eclipse 3.4M7 (Ganymede) with CDT (C++ Plugin). This is good because it has a nice Subversion plugin that integrates well. I find CDT has good syntax highlighting, lots of customization and really good code-completion/templates. The new Release Candidate with Ganymede is a big improvement of the current stable Europa.

Dev-C++ is nice, but it hasn't received any major updates in many years. I'm not even sure bug fixes are being done to it anymore?. I stopped using this a while ago as it couldn't do everything I wanted.

VC++ is good, but it's a Microsoft product so you have to deal with all the Microsoft crap they add into it (MFC etc).

It's all personal preference.

[QWERTYman]

*cough*Dev-C++rules*cough*
Mostly because it is free, and it is user-friendly (nice point, somelauw).
It started me programming, and I have been using it for (gasp) one month. It may be dated, but, well, y'know.

[Zaita]

I would say Dev-C++ is user-friendly upto a point. It's almost like the current equiv to Java's Blue-J. But as I have said in other posts, it hasn't received a major update in quite a while.

I would look at something a bit more modern like NetBeans, CodeBlocks or Eclipse CDT (maybe a bit complicated to begin with).