I'm having trouble picking a programming tool

[Cyan]

Hello, this is my first post here. I am a complete beginner and you'll probably see me a lot here. Anyway, I followed your advice and downloaded Visual C++, but I find it very complicated to use. I am much more comfortable with Dev C++ but I am told that it is obsolete and I should refrain from using it. So basically, if I am a beginning programmer and I would like to learn the basics (again, I only know the basics that the tutorial on this site taught me) is it okay for me to use Dev C++ over Visual Studio? Or should I just stick it out and get used to it?

Thanks for your time.

[moorecm]

It's just text. Use any editor and compiler combo that you like--IDEs pair the two up in one nice little package. The issue that I have with IDEs is that they often have far more features than you'll ever want and they often seem to abstract away some details of the compilation process that I value. On the positive side, IDEs can have wonderful debuggers.

Personally, I use Vim, GCC, and gdb. I have a development VM on a flash drive that I can run in VMware Player at home or at work.

[AngelHoof]

*sigh*

It troubles me that people speak badly of Dev-C++ :(

If you are a beginner (which you are, like you say) then there is no problem in using Dev-C++.

Like i have said many other times, Visual C++ can be intimidating to beginners.

I'd say, the easier road is to stay with Dev-C++ until you grasp the basics of C++.

However, once you intend to start working on something on a larger scale - use Visual :)

[magnificence7]

I suggest to look for some tutorials or something like that to get familair to VC++, maybe not right away, but maybe some time in the future. Now that VS2010 is out, Intellisence works very well (which previously only worked well in Visual Basic/C#), Intellisence is like auto complete with an word-like spell check where it tries to detect errors while you write your code. But I don't really know Dev-C++, so I'm not comparing or anything.