[Techtalk] compilers (and lack of IDEs)

[Mary Gardiner]

On Thu, Jan 03, 2002 at 01:02:04PM -0700, stephani schielke wrote:
> hi there,
> i'm pretty new to using linux and i'm also pretty new to programming.  i 
> wanted to know what compilers are available for C++ and Java in the 
> linux environment.  right now i'm using M$ visual C++ 6.0 and it's fine, 
> but i really am wanting to move completely over to linux...but i'm a  CS 
> student and need something to compile with.  this seems like an 
> incredibly elementary problem, compared to the majority of posts, but 
> like i said, i'm pretty green when it comes to linux!  Thanks for your 
> help, in advance.

The most common C++ compiler is the GNU compiler g++, should be
available with every Linux distribution. It has an older sibling, the
GNU C compiler, gcc, which helped make Linux possible in the first
place. You will also need to learn GNU make. See http://gcc.gnu.org/

I don't know of any Free (as in open source) Java compilers for Linux,
so I simply use the free (as in free to download, no licence fees) Sun
Java compiler for Linux, available from http://java.sun.com . I think
the gcc project is getting closer to having a Java compiler, but I don't
think it's ready for production use just yet.

Note that neither of these have an IDE like VC++ or many Java utilities
for Windows. They are commandline compilers. I don't use IDEs, but
someone may be able to recommend one.

If you don't use an IDE you will certainly need the UNIX programmer's
friend - the powerful text editor. I use vim, others suggest emacs, jed,
or nedit.

-Mary.

-- 
Mary Gardiner
<mary at puzzling.org>