What is the best IDE for a beginner?

I downloaded and installed Visual Studio and was really overwhelmed. Looked to be too much for me at my stage...

I was hoping to find a small simple IDE that will help with formatting / syntax help but isn't a massive application where I, at this moment, won't need all the extra....

Jeff W Waldrop

I am using Notepad++ to build code in....
https://www.onlinegdb.com/
You can try this.
I will take a look at it...
Hello Jeff Waldrop,

There are many IDEs available. The ones I know about are: "VS" (Visual Studio), CLion, CodeBlocks, CodeLite and DEV C++.

As with any of these it will take some time to learn how to set up the program and use it.

I have been using VS for about 2 years, (VS 2015 and VS 2017), and even today I do not use its full potential. Mostly just the basics.

I tried CLion recently to try to understand its file structure and how it works, but have not spent much time with it. I am not sure if there is a free version of this program.

CodeBlocks is quite popular. This is one I have not used yet.

CodeLite is used in a Umdey course I looked into and was said to be an easy and simple IDE to use. I could get use to this one.

DEV C++ as I have read and seen here this may not be the best choice, but it is not as involved as VS. I found that (out of the box) so to speak that the compiler was set to use the C++98 or 99 standards and had to be changed to use the C++11 standards. I have not used it that much so I am not sure if the IDE and compiler can go beyond C++11.

VS has its own compiler all the rest use the MinGW compiler, which is a good compiler. I remember with CodeLite the compiler is a separate download from the IDE, but not hard to work with. The IDE will need some setup to connect to the compiler and set the standards that it will use.

I am not one to promote Microsoft or VS, but there are many features that are very handy once you get use to them.

As with any IDE you choose it is a matter of sticking with it and learning it.

There are a lot of people that use something like "notepad" to write their code and then compile from the command line. Again just something that you would have to get use to doing. And eventually you would learn to use a "cmake" file to automate the compile process.

Having used VS I can do my best to answer any questions that you have.

Hope that helps,

Andy
There are a lot of people that use something like "notepad" to write their code and then compile from the command line. Again just something that you would have to get use to doing. And eventually you would learn to use a "cmake" file to automate the compile process.


I used to do that when I first started learning C++, I actually used Notepad++ because It had a .cpp file mode where it would highlight things in different colours just like DEV C++ or VS would.

I always used to just write the code and then paste into devc++ to compile it,

>And eventually you would learn to use a "cmake" file to automate the compile process.
How do you do that, and what is a cmake file?



To answer OP's question, I personally started with DEV C++ for learning, and then moved on to VS17 for bigger projects. VS is amazing for making things handy for you, and basically doing certain things for you to make you gain time. However I find DEV C++, in it's old age, really good for learning since the program doesn't really help you and it's your job to not make any typos and it may be sometimes not easy to debug with it, especially if you have a big chunk of code, But I still use it from time to time and still like it.

That's personal opinion anyway, hope that helps you Jeff.
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H00G0 wrote:
>And eventually you would learn to use a "cmake" file to automate the compile process.
How do you do that, and what is a cmake file?


I did some google / wiki searches for you :+)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Makefile
https://cmake.org/cmake/help/latest/manual/cmake.1.html

An advantage of modern IDE's is that they can generate and use make files automatically.
Cheers TheIdeasMan!
Don't any other IDEs other than Visual Studio take care of the CMAKE file part for the user? Or am I getting the wrong idea of CMAKE files?
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