IDE or no IDE?

[forddavis]

Hello,

I have been programming on a MacBook for about a year now and I jut enrolled in a c++ based data structures class. The instructor seems to strongly encourage using the emacs IDE which as far as I can tell is awful, my other alternative is xCode which appears to have it's own issues with c++, is there a better alternative or should I just go with no IDE?

Are there a lot of extra little things to take care of if I just work out of a text editor?

I know I have g++ on my system and I can compile from the terminal, if there's no downside to doing this I would probably prefer it as so far the IDE's for c++ I've seen are more trouble than they're worth.

Thanks a lot,
Ford

[coder777]

Use an IDE (for instance Code::Blocks). It spares you the hassle with the makefile. Plus it eases the work with the Debugger.

[Blackavar]

If you aren't a professional, you should probably prefer xcode to emacs; emacs is optimized for professionals who have better things to do with their time than reach for the mouse.

Have you tried using xcode's debugger (with breakpoints). If not, I can see why you would consider no IDE to be a reasonable option.

[1vRz3TCk]

forddavis wrote:

my other alternative is xCode which appears to have it's own issues with c++

Do tell, what issues do you have?

[forddavis]

Well I don't know what this error is about, but I built a class that was supposed to work with a header file built by my instructor. xcode said the program was okay, but when I ran it I got this error and it failed:

Undefined symbols for architecture x86_64:
"main_savitch_2C::statistician::statistician()", referenced from:
operator+(main_savitch_2C::statistician const&, main_savitch_2C::statistician const&) in stats.o
operator*(double, main_savitch_2C::statistician const&) in stats.o
ld: symbol(s) not found for architecture x86_64
clang: error: linker command failed with exit code 1 (use -v to see invocation)


main_savitch_2C is a namespace defined by the instructor. I probably did something wrong, I don't really understand what I did but I'd guess based on the warning I used something specific to a 32bit architecture? Aside from that I have copied textbook examples perfectly and compiled them with no errors and not gotten xcode to read from or write to a file which has caused me a lot of frustration in the past.

I'll try using the debugger with breakpoints, and if I still don't like it I'll try code::blocks I guess. I'm sure emacs is efficient, I just don't have time to learn how to use it at the moment.

Thanks for your help!

[hanst99]

I personally would strongly recommend you to use Eclipse or Code::Blocks. Emacs isn't really an IDE, it's more of an extensible text editor.