AutoCompeletion and other stuff in linux

[kam hagh]

My friend tells me that linux is only good for low level programming, is this true?

for example, he tells me qtcreator is too bad for anything other then gui and sublime only looks for open files
if you have an app with like 12 classes you can't have all the classes open!

and also he tells me there aren't any good debuggers and you have to compile every class even if you make a small change to a single one!

are these true:?

he basically tells me that Linux is nothing compared to Visual studio!

[Shadowwolf]

It's a matter of how you like to work. Visual Studio is a tool, not a platform. And just like Windows has VS, Linux has its set of tools too. Linux has the advantage that setting up toolchains is much more easy than on windows (and much better documented), which is why it's so popular for low-level programming. But now for your friend's statements:

Let's start with "the fact that there aren't any good debuggers". GDB is probably one of the best debuggers I ever worked with. It contains commands for just about anything you want to debug in a C++ program, from watching the stack to attaching source code. GDB is shipped with the GCC compiler, which is the most commonly used on Linux. There are numerous of IDE's that build a graphical functionality about the command-line GDB, just like Visual Studio does around its own debugger.

Next up, compiling ever class even if you change one. This is absolutely wrong. There are tons of automated build systems that prevent this. Any IDE running on a Linux platform will have the logic implemented to not compile everything every time. And for command-line Linux, we have Makefiles. The make command will even see what needs to be done to update files, using timestamps to determine if files changed. So even command-line Linux supports this. I'd love to see Visual Studio do that for me.

If you're used to Windows, try Ubuntu or Linux Mint. These are graphical Linux systems which aim at users used to other platforms. Most Linux distros have their own software centers (comparable to the Windows Store, which actually came after Linux' version), from which you can easily download any application you would like to install, including good IDE's.

What your friend is trying to do is compare Visual Studio to command-line Linux without any applications installed, which is an unfair equation. Try to compare graphical Linux to graphical Windows without any IDE installed. In that case, Linux will probably win with ease for development.

So to give a final answer to your question: no, there are not true. Visual Studio is a good IDE for windows, but Linux has its own set of great IDE's. It's just a matter of picking the one you like best.

[kam hagh]

Thanks for the reply Shadowwolf, I've been using Ubuntu sometimes with xfce since i was 10! I only go to windows for games ;) but he made me wonder if I was doing anything wrong or "missing" anything! as I'm learning, I haven't coded anything more then 500 lines so i haven't experianced the need of using GDB :D

[Moschops]

Your friend, at risk of sounding harsh, literally does not know what he is talking about. I could go into detail, but I think that was pretty clear. I'm not speaking colloquially; your friend literally does not possess the information needed to make sensible comments.

there aren't any good debuggers

If he doesn't consider GDB a good debugger, I'd like to know just what he thinks a debugger is. I bet he thinks that pretty rectangles and lots of colours are the debugger.

Nod politely, and ignore him.