What the best or the most frequently used C++ compiler under Windows?

What the best or the most frequentl开发者_StackOverflow社区y used C++ compiler under Windows?

Besides Visual Studio, it seems there have two options: Dev-C++ and Eclipse.

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Besides Visual Studio, it seems there have two options: Dev-C++ and Eclipse.

Strictly neither of your named examples are "compilers" they are all IDEs. Dev-C++ specifically used GCC, and is packaged with MinGW/GCC, Eclipse is not distributed with a compiler at all.

Visual C++ in its "Express Edition" is available for free and is more fully featured that the ageing Dev-C++, and on a par perhaps, though less extensible than Eclipse. Full Visual Studio/VC++ has "plug-in" extensibility though.

VC++ has good ISO C++ support as well as C++/CLI, but no ISO C99 support if that is important to you. The version of MinGW packaged with Dev-C++ is GCC 3.4.5, and Dev-C++ is no longer developed - avoid.

Critically perhaps, Dev-C++'s integration of GDB is minimal and severely broken in such a way as to make it unusable. Using GDB from within Eclipse is better, but it is still just GDB while VC++'s debugger is about the best I have ever used.

Also for Windows development, there are fewer barriers to using Microsoft API's in VC++ than with open source projects that cannot include the official Win32 API or .NET framework.

On the other hand, outside of Visual Studio, VC++ like all compilers is a command line tool, and can be used within other IDEs or stand-alone if you prefer. The Dev-C++ derived wxDev-C++ specifically supports the Microsoft Compiler as an alternative back-end, and Eclipse can be used with any compiler.

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I don't know about the best but I've seen MS-Visual Studio and Borland C++ are 2 of the most widely used compilers on Windows.

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Dev-C++ and Eclipse.

Those are not compilers but IDEs. I prefer MinGW under Windows environment. Clang is also very good.

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Not to forget the freeware GCC/G++. Compiler is different from IDE, though; for an IDE for Windows, no matter what your politics re Microsoft, Visual Studio is simply a joy to use. Granted, I use it mostly for .NET languages, so if you're not open to using managed code, your mileage may vary :-)

If you're feeling particularly hard-core, and cheap (yay cheap!), you could do worse than XEMacs and GCC.

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There's Netbean's C++ mode and also QtCreator which can use any compiler supported by Qt4, I use it with msvc++ 10 on windows and gcc on linux.

Forgot to mention MS VC++ Express is free on windows and ofcourse MinGW/GCC.

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Being brand new to posting here and not having read historical posts, I'm pretty sure that there have been all kinds of debates about which compiler is optimal for Windows.

Personally, I tend to stick with Visual Studio's native compiler cl.exe, more for ease of use than anything.

For cross platform development, I'll use VS (and cl.exe) for Windows and vim (or emacs), gcc and gdb for 'nix.

Having said that, in terms of IDE (which seems to be your focus more than compiler) I've found that nothing REALLY matches VS for sheer productivity.

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Use MinGW for windows. MinGW includes:

• A port of the GNU Compiler Collection (GCC), including C, C++, ADA and Fortran compilers;
• GNU Binutils for Windows (assembler, linker, archive manager)
• A graphical and a command-line installer for MinGW and MSYS deployment on MS-Windows.

And best to use linux for development. Development is too much easy in linux as compared to windows.