[Techtalk] compilers

[Terri Oda]

At 01:02 PM 03/01/02 -0700, stephani schielke wrote:
>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.

I don't want to be too discouraging here, but I've found, unfortunately, 
that sometimes you *have* to use what they suggest in order to get the 
results they want for courses.  It's unfortunate, but I can understand 
where they don't want the poor TAs having to support multi operating 
systems and compilers, and the functions can vary quite a bit from platform 
to platform even within a standardized language.  So before you take a leap 
and switch over completely, do make sure it's okay.  I haven't had many 
problems, partially because we were often asked to do assignments in Linux, 
but I did have a couple of courses that wanted us to use specific compilers 
and I had to either work in windows or go and test-run my code in the NT 
labs at school.  (One of these courses was an assembler course -- we were 
rather disgusted to discover that the syntax of the linux compilers we 
found and the (free) microsoft one we were supposed to use were quite 
different!)

Best of luck!  I also suggest that you ask around with other students to 
see what has worked and what hasn't.  It's always illuminating, and a great 
excuse to start a conversation. :)  Sometimes when you talk to upper year 
students, you find someone can lend you a tarball or even a CD with 
everything you'll need for a given course, including old course notes, old 
assignments and other gems.

Terri