Programming in Windows - How to?

[Zorac]

Hey!

I have been learning C++ on Linux using Atom and the terminal with GNU-compiler. However Linux is turning out to create a lot problems for me on my laptop.

So i was thinking of going over to Windows again. Is it possible to use Atom and some sort of terminal (CMD?) or should i just use Visual Studio that everyone else seems to use? Any good links with different ways to do C++ programing in windows?

Thanks
- Z

[Shadowwolf]

It's possible to use the command line terminal on windows (CMD.exe). To do this you should add the directory where your compiler is installed (Visual C++, mingw gcc, cygwin gcc or whatever you like to work with) to the PATH environment variable (either of the current command session, the current user, or the system wide version). That way you can use the command line terminal to compile whatever programs you like.

Since you seem to be used to using GCC on Linux, you could take a look at mingw or mingw-w64 (http://mingw-w64.org/doku.php). These are ports of the GCC compiler toolchain for windows, you can mostly use them like you were used to on Linux.

The Atom editor you use seems to have a windows port, you could try it out, I have no experience with this editor though so I can't tell how good it will work. Considering it's just a text editor with syntax highlighting, it shouldn't be that different from what you're used to.

An example of compiling and running the file "test.cpp" which contains code to output "Hello, world!" located on your desktop would be:

C:\Users\*USERNAME*\Desktop> g++ -o test.exe -Wall -O2 test.cpp
C:\Users\*USERNAME*\Desktop> test.exe
Hello, world!

It's not that hard to get used to windows CMD, it's not that complex (nor as advanced as the Linux terminal).