What ... Do you use?

[Stefano Mtangoo]

I'm curious what you Developer uses:
1. What is your favorite IDE
2. What is your favorite GUI library
3. What is library that you often use?
4. Anything related?

[Narue]

>1. What is your favorite IDE
I'd have to say that I prefer Visual Studio due to relative ease of use (mostly from the debugger).

>2. What is your favorite GUI library
I equally dislike all of the ones I've tried.

>3. What is library that you often use?
The standard library.

>4. Anything related?
You couldn't think of any more specific questions, so you left it to us? :icon_rolleyes:

[Frederick2]

I really like CodeBlocks with Visual Studio 2008 coming in a close second.

I'm with Narue on the class frameworks...

>2. What is your favorite GUI library
I equally dislike all of the ones I've tried.

...except that I think I hate MFC worst of all.

For Windows GUI programming I do standard Sdk with special message cracker routines I learned from Douglas Boling and his Windows CE books.

I compile as C++ but except for all the C Standard Library stuff I like I don't use class frameworks. I can't tolerate bloated programs.

I like to use classes for 'business objects'; not as wrappers around Win Api functionality.

[Clinton Portis]

I use whatever works...

I've spent hours looking for a compiler that could handle one single line of code before.

You never know what comes with what compiler. Nothing works for everything.

[mrnutty]

1. What is your favorite IDE

Microsoft visual studio. just tried eclipse, and its not bad either.
Both debugger are nice.

2. What is your favorite GUI library

OpenGL, the only one I use.

3. What is library that you often use?

STL's.

[Stefano Mtangoo]

>2. What is your favorite GUI library
I equally dislike all of the ones I've tried.

So you don't use GUI or WinAPI? What about linux?

>3. What is library that you often use?
The standard library.

I should have said What is non standard library that you often use?

>4. Anything related?
You couldn't think of any more specific questions, so you left it to us? :icon_rolleyes:

Yeah! I thought there must be something related I didn't knew, strange is it? :twisted:

[Ancient Dragon]

Favorite IDE: VC++ 2008. Code::Blocks close second. M$ has the best debugger on MS-Windows I've ever seen. When on *nix I use VI and gdb, recently started using Code::Blocks on *nix.

Graphics library: ON MS-Windows I love MFC. It's difficult to learn, about a year's learning curve. I've dabbled with wxWidgets, but not much.

Other libraries: DataReel. I know it fairly well, and have even ported it to WinCE a few years ago.

[Dave Sinkula]

1. What is your favorite IDE SlickEdit
2. What is your favorite GUI library N/A, OpenGL if it weren't N/A
3. What is library that you often use? Standard libraries; libXML, zlib, dabbling in libCurl in a far lesser extent
4. Anything related? I recommend using Lint

[Ancient Dragon]

4. Anything related? I recommend using Lint

I don't like Lint -- I tried it a couple times 10+ years ago and it produced so many warnings that I couldn't tell the good from the bad (meaning the warnings that were superfluous). IMO modern compilers do a better job of finding mistakes.

[Dave Sinkula]

I don't like Lint -- I tried it a couple times 10+ years ago and it produced so many warnings that I couldn't tell the good from the bad (meaning the warnings that were superfluous). IMO modern compilers do a better job of finding mistakes.

The thing with using lint is knowing which diagnostic messages you can turn off in general. Stuff that gets repeated hundreds of times and relates to something the programmer verifies is not an issue.

One example I ran into recently dealt with declaring bitfields as unsigned char instead of unsigned int . This of course was a structure type in a header, so there reams of the same message. But it was a necessity for our project to declare it that way. So we could safely turn the message off. No big deal. And one vast pile of messages went away.

But one other key thing is using the lint comments in the code to quiet other messages. What this does is force a programmer to visit suspect code, and by adding the lint comment, the programmer can then show in the code itself that the issue was examined and determined to be okay. The code is then left with detailed information about possible bugs and that the programmer has indeed verified intended behavior.

Repeatedly doing this squeezes that initial vast quantity of messages into what eventually becomes a shorter and more valuable list. The vast quantity of messages you first get when beginning to use lint on a project may seem daunting. But knowing how to use the tool is the key to using it successfully. And the capabilities of a good linter do go far beyond what I've seen compilers do.

[edit]For example,

Won't my compiler do syntax checking?

Compilers do an excellent job of finding syntax errors and most will produce warnings. But PC-lint and FlexeLint begin where compilers leave off. PC-lint/FlexeLint contains numerous features such as precision tracking, initialization checking, value tracking, strong type checking and macro analysis that compilers do not have. Also PC-lint/FlexeLint looks across a set of modules to find intermodule inconsistencies and redundancies. This compilers do not do.

[Narue]

>So you don't use GUI or WinAPI? What about linux?
I do use the Windows API, but there's more to it than just GUI. I have little interest in front-end coding (though I do it occasionally). My work and my preference is on the back end.

>I should have said What is non standard library that you often use?
I suppose if you remove the option of the standard C++ library, I would have to choose the system libraries next (POSIX and Win32). After that, probably my libraries from my personal collection, as I use them regularly.

[Lawand]

1. What is your favorite IDE
Eclipse, and Qt Creator in the second place.
2. What is your favorite GUI library
Qt
3. What is library that you often use?
The standard library, Qt, OpenGL
4. Anything related?
yes, my favorite compiler is G++, part of GNU GCC