I'm starting to do a Computer Games Development course in Uni in september (Which you need no previous experience, started from the beggining) but want to try and gain some experience, so was wondering whats the best Free C++ Writer program where I can just learn the basicc stuff at the moment?
See with your univerity, they usually have paying software which can be given to you for free as you are student (student special). Usually you will find Microsoft there. Anyway. You have Visual C++ Express Edition that is free (it's the lite version of Visual Studio 2008) http://www.microsoft.com/express/vc/
You'll probably get the full version of Visual Studio, but I'd reccomend looking at Eclipse for a sampler, it's always going to be free.
I've not started Uni yet, and won't get the software yet, thats why. I'll download the Visual C++ Express Edition, cheers.
Which uni are you going to? Oh and use Visual C++ till you get your uni pc logins and then go here...https://www.dreamspark.com/default.aspx. You can get the pro editions of VS 2003 & 2008 for free as well as stuff like Win Server 2003 & 2008. I would also recommend http://www.amazon.co.uk/Accelerated-Practical-Programming-Example-Depth/dp/020170353X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1247649073&sr=8-1. It will help quite a lot, it did for me. Edit: oh and look at this: http://www.essentialmath.com/tutorial.htm sadly you will eventually need everything listed there and more.
Visual studio is great for beginners, since it lets you step through the code line by line GCC or G++ (i use GCC for my C coding, not a fan of actual software stuff as im a hardware guy) is more powerful because it is very easy to include non-standard libraries and bucket loads of useful compile flags. so, VS to start, and move on to GCC once you get the hang of coding, or need to include a special library. (such as SystemC, which need a very complicated procedure to install on VS, and very simple to install on Linux for GCC)
g++ is not more powerful, it is not a faster/better compiler nor is it any more standards compliant than the ms compiler. It is no harder including non standard libraries in ms c++, and those compile flags are all available in VS through the project settings. Also the ms v++ compiler does basic code checking for you and catches some very common array out of bounds errors during runtime, instead of just crashing and leaving you wondering... For a beginner, i'd definately advise the vs c++ express edition, eclipse is good but its a nightmare for a beginner, hell i'm not a beginner and i've struggled with that damn IDE. nevermind the fact that with plain old g++ you have no debugging environment, no EASY way to set up various compilation profiles, you can use kdevelop for all that but at the end of the day the vs express edition has all that, is free and run on windows where the bulk of game dev is done (seeing as its a game dev course)
I'm just learning fromt he beggining and have found Dev-C++ quite easy to start off with as I understand the conventions of it, and see examples of my work quite easily. I'm going to University of Central Lancahsire for Computer Games Development haddow. I've already done the basic Hello World program lol, can memorise the actual code off my head, and now I'm trying to learn what each of it does, which I'm finding not all that easy to take in. I have a book to help me begin that just uses text based programs for now to start me off.
dev c++ is an atrocious IDE, it hasnt been updated in forever and has one of the most horrible indenting systems ever, codeblocks was slightly better but not by much. Both those IDE's debuggers were quite terrible. I pretty much do all my development in c++, and by far visual studio is the best IDE I've encountered. Indenting, auto-completion, ease of use and best of all the msdn reference, help with any function/warning/error at the touch of f1... oh i have a c22884 error, hit f1, full explanation + example code that causes it and a solution. at the end of the day the IDE sits on top of a c++ compiler, dev c, codeblocks, eclipse all use the gcc/g++ windows port (mingwin), while VS sit on the ms compiler. PS. the best book for c++ I've encountered is: learn to program c++ in 21days by jesse liberty!! Its an epic starting book!
http://www.play.com/Books/Books/4-/...Teach+Yourself+C+++in+21+Days+-+Jesse+Liberty That the book you mean? What sort of stuff does it explain within it?
Have a look on amazon. They have the "look-inside" thing for books. I'd echo the Visual Studio recommendations - the express edition is brilliant, especially with the online MSDN too.
yeh that's the one, covers practically everything you need to know about c++, make sure you get the latest edition, i got the 2nd ed, and its excellent so i can only imagine the later editions are even better. it wont cover topics like generics, design patterns, memory optimization and stuff, but all those are advanced topics that should get taught in separate courses.
Fully agreed with Coldon here. Visual C++ Express Edition is the winnah for me because its what I learnt on dev music apps on my course at uni.
I'll buy the 4th edition, over the 5th edition as its 1/4 of the price on play.com, but I will buy that book cheers. I'll also try and use Visual C++ Express Edition, and learn the program.
Sorry if this is an obvious question, but don't any apps compiled in Visual Studio later than v6.0 need .NET Framework on the PC to run?
not unless you make use of the dot net framework, if you just use the standard c++ libraries, then it doesn't matter what compiler you use it will compile and run the same on any platform.
