Good C++ Software

[Veltas]

Please excuse me if I don't use correct terminology since I'm still relatively new to C++. I can already program with OOP and etc. however I want to do some serious Windows programming and maybe also learn to use the Direct3D 10/11 API. Even so, a lot of people recommend using Visual C++ Express 2010 to me, but I'm not keen on it since:
It is only a 'lite' version.
It is slow (probably because MS were trying to prove a point that they use Visual Basic professionally).

Now, I've already tried Google and asking friends but I can't make a decision using the small information I can get from these sources, so maybe a professional Windows or even Direct3D programmer can help me out and tell me what free alternative is best.

Thank you very much, Veltas.

[freddie1]

I have Visual Studio 2008 Pro and Code::Blocks (open source - download for free). I prefer Code::Blocks even though I paid about $550 US for Visual Studio. It is faster on the old and slow hardware I'm usually running...

http://www.codeblocks.org/

Anything from Microsoft tends to be 'heavy'. I don't use .NET myself much, but its certainly popular and you can do a lot with it. Its probably worthwhile becomming a little familiar with it.

I'm personally not 'into' fancy graphics so I can't advise you there.

[taylorc8]

If you are a student you can get Visual Studio 2008/2010 pro. for free from Microsoft DreamSpark, oh, and other software :D

www.dreamspark.com


BTW I love Visual Studio 2010, maybe you should invest in new hardware?

VS2010 has some new C++ features, like the "auto" keyword, and lambda functions..

auto f = [](const char *str) { std::cout << str << std::endl; };
f("Nice.");

[Bazzy]

Those features are from C++0x. GCC has them as well
http://www.cplusplus.com/forum/articles/7263/

[markhugy]

Here is a good tool to find and delete duplicate files
[URL] http://www.duplicateFilesDeleter.com [/URL]