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IpsoRandomo
Deinonychus
Joined: Dec 02, 2006
Age: 22
Posts: 375
Location: Colorado Springs
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 Posted: Thu Jun 26, 2008 3:41 am Post subject: Help with C Compilers |
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I'm a beginner looking for a free and easy to use C compiler. I'd especially like one that came with "Dos libraries."
Amy help or advice would be appreciated. |
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Fuzzy
Ack! Thbbbt!
Joined: Mar 31, 2006
Posts: 3614
Location: Alberta Canada
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PilotPirx
Deinonychus
Joined: May 09, 2008
Age: 39
Posts: 368
Location: Amsterdam, NL
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| Posted: Thu Jun 26, 2008 5:49 am Post subject: |
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Would help if you could tell as, what you want to do.
Dos (really MS-DOS?) is slightly outdated and you should have a good reason if you want to waste your time on it.
Same goes for C. IF there is no good reason to use it, C++ will save you quite some pain. And using Java or Ruby or something like that would e even better)
A modern IDE will save you lots of time. Mainly with those nasty makefiles that come with C.
Microsoft gives away Visual C++ Express Edition for free.
There is the gnu C and C++ compiler which is free and available for lots of OS, including Windows.
http://gcc.gnu.org/
Linux would offer even more free tools, since the whole system is based on them. KDevelop is a good IDE.
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n4mwd
Phoenix
Joined: Jun 08, 2008
Posts: 707
Location: Palm Beach, FL
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| Posted: Thu Jun 26, 2008 6:39 am Post subject: Re: Help with C Compilers |
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| IpsoRandomo wrote: | I'm a beginner looking for a free and easy to use C compiler. I'd especially like one that came with "Dos libraries."
Amy help or advice would be appreciated. |
For a high quality and lightning fast DOS C compiler with integrated debugger, you can try Turbo C 2.01 which is free for the download at: http://dn.codegear.com/article/20841
This is a DOS only compiler so programs will have to run in the MS-DOS box on windows or directly if you have an old machine that runs real DOS.
When you are learning C for the first time, starting with DOS programming is an easy way to start. You don't have to learn all the windows caveats to make it run. I also suggest you start with real C rather than C++. C++ is considerably more complicated and takes a lot longer to learn.
Once you master the basics, you should load "Borland C 5.02", which is also free for the download. It supports real C programming in windows and, unfortunately, C++. However, it will also allow you to create Win32 console apps. These are easy to code like DOS, because windows hooks are not required, but they run in a full 32 bit environment so you'll be able to code larger programs with less stress.
Once you've gotten used to win32, you can start coding for wn32gui. That is programs that are actual windows and not text based. These are much more complicated than console apps, but you will get the hang of them in short order I'm sure.
The main advantage to using borland c 5.02 is that it has context sensitive help so you just hit F1 and it will tell you what to do. But its also just a really good compiler. It came out back in 1995 or so and was so good that Microsoft bribed all of the Borland programmers to come to work for microsoft. Before then, the Microsoft visual C compiler was really crappy. Borland never really recovered from that. |
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iceb
Tarkalean hawk
Joined: Apr 27, 2007
Posts: 1515
Location: The Liberator flight deck
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| Posted: Thu Jun 26, 2008 11:27 am Post subject: |
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open watcom
http://www.openwatcom.org
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SabbraCadabra
Sea Gull
Joined: Apr 22, 2008
Posts: 2486
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| Posted: Thu Jun 26, 2008 12:53 pm Post subject: |
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| PilotPirx wrote: | | Microsoft gives away Visual C++ Express Edition for free. |
Is it still free? When I downloaded it, they said it was only going to be free until November (of whatever year that was...2005?).
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t0
Phoenix
Joined: Mar 24, 2008
Posts: 798
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| Posted: Thu Jun 26, 2008 1:41 pm Post subject: |
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| SabbraCadabra wrote: | | PilotPirx wrote: | | Microsoft gives away Visual C++ Express Edition for free. |
Is it still free? When I downloaded it, they said it was only going to be free until November (of whatever year that was...2005?). |
I downloaded it last year and it was still free. I was disappointed that the UI doesn't have the context sensitive markup like Visual C# Express (also free).
OP - Do you have a particular project in mind? If it's a console app, I don't think the C compiler will matter much. They're all pretty easy to use. |
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