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When I started programming C and C++ were the first languages that I learnt. These languages are extremely powerful. The IDE that I used at that time was very basic, and it was like coding in a notepad without any support from editor itself. Today I got an email about this free IDE for C++ from a member of the development team. I checked out it, and I am quite impressed with this.
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Code Blocks is a Free and Open Source IDE for C++ coding. It is really terrific in its functionality, and makes the coding process a lot simpler, and faster. Code Blocks works on Windows, Mac, and Linux.
Here are the aspects that I loved in Code Blocks:
Very Good Debugging Capabilities
Code Blocks makes it very easy to debug your C++ code. You can put breakpoints through out the code, and define custom watches. You can even put conditions on breakpoints, so that execution is paused only if a condition is true. Some of the other Debugging Features:
- Data breakpoints (read, write and read/write)
- Breakpoint ignore counts (break only after certain number of hits)
- Display local function symbols and arguments
- Call stack
- Disassembly
- Custom memory dump
- Switch between threads
- View CPU registers
Fully Extensible by Plugins:
Code Blocks is made in such a way that the functionality can easily be extended by plugins. Even some of the core functionalities of Code Blocks is provided through plugins. Many core plugins are installed by default (like Debugger, Compiler). There are many 3rd party plugins also available that can further improve the coding experience. I browsed through the plugins list, and found some pretty interesting ones:
- Auto Versioning: Keep track of project versions.
- Code Snippets: Manage small pieces of code.
- Help Plugin: Integrates 3rd party help files.
Very good Interface:
- Syntax Highlighting
- Code Completion
- Tabbed Interface
- Class Browser.
If you are a C++ developer, try out this free tool for C++ Development. It will cut your coding time, as well as improve the coding experience. Love it!
Download (Free): Click Here Works With: Windows, Mac, Linux Free / Paid: Free |
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I’ve tried this one in the past. Text editing is based on Scintilla (same as Notepad++ and few other powerful editors), which is strong plus.
However you have to manually hook some compiler to it. And development of Code::Blocks is weird – stable version kinda abandoned in favor of “nightly builds”.
PS On topic of IDEs I need to go install beta of Visual Studio 2010 on notebook for courses tomorrow. :)
@Rarst: The text editing and formatting is really good in this. Compared to my good old days of C++ programming, this looks like a heaven to me.
I am still stuck on Visual Studio 2007. I am not allowed to upgrade to beta version in office, and don’t like to use Visual Studio at home – staring at it for hours in office is more than enough :)
I have to use Studio for courses (very heavy on MS products). I like C/C++ but it is amazingly complex language to use for daily stuff.
So most of my coding is AutoIt and PHP, no IDE necessary. :)
@Rarst: I checked out AutoIt, and it seems like a pretty good language. I didn’t know something like this exists. For PHP, I prefer to use Kompozer . This is a good IDE for PHP programming.
This is great for the Linux platform where it is difficult to find a good IDE. Also there is CodeLite which is also a good IDE for working on the Linux platform, very simple and easy to use.
@Kevin: This is a really good IDE. I so wish it was available 5-6 years back when I was coding in C. I checked out CodeLite, and it seems good. I will write about that as well sometime.