saint_sicarii wrote: > I am a relatively old programmer, but have been away from coding for a while > (15 - 20 > years). I used to work in Pascal and Basic (and know the basics of Fortran > and RPG-IV). I > began learning C three years ago, but have been told that C++ is the future > of that language > (that and it is required for a Computer Engineering Dgree, which I am working > on)... I have > been learning C++ on a PC with Visual Studio 6... Not bad as an IDE goes, but > since I own a > Mac, and most of my friends own Macs... I have been wondering about XCode, > and what it is > like compared to Vis Studio 6? > > Can anyone enlighten me on where a god place to begin would be. I have been > looking for an > O'Reilly book on XCode, but have not found one yet. I have found two on > Carbon adn Cocoa, > but none specifically for XCode. I am guessing that I will need to look at a > publisher other > than O'Reilly to find a book specifically for XCode.. > > Since my school cirriculum describes classes that I will be taking in > languages like LISP, > Smalltalk, and others that I have never heard of (That suposedly XCode > supports), I was > wondering if someone could enlighten me... > > I have also heard of a compiler/IDE called Eclipse that is good for C/C++, > what is up with it? > > Matthew Bailey
Never used XCode but know it is Apple's new way of developing stuff for their platform. The point of XCode though is easy GUI widget coding stuff _for Mac only_. When starting out on C/C++, you probably don't want to mess with the GUI or it'll confuse you and it will make getting help that much harder. LISP and Smalltalk are _ancient_. Tell your professors that. Eclipse is designed more for Java development and is just IDE/Editor. No compiler as far as I know. Putting that aside, you are going to want a good _debugger_ for C/C++. The best debugger on the market today is buried in Visual Studio .NET 2003/2005. Microsoft gives away VC++ .NET 2005 Express for free from their website and it includes the debugger you'll want (the .NET part is just a "brand name", native EXEs are generated from VC++ Express unless you explicitly start messing with the Managed/Unmanaged .NET runtime interfaces). If Microsoft products aren't your thing and you want cross-platform portability, there's wxDev C++ (wxWidgets + dialog designer + Dev-C++), which is pretty good but the debugger is significantly weaker (uses some flavor of ported gdb). Get some good books to learn from. I offer a free book to c-prog members called Safe C++ Design Principles (see the Files section) that is well worth reading. Victor Wagner has a list of books as well. The things you learn in class will not be nearly as valuable as the stuff you pick up from this group and the good books you read. -- Thomas Hruska CubicleSoft President Ph: 517-803-4197 *NEW* VerifyMyPC 2.5 Change tracking and management tool. Reduce tech. support times from 2 hours to 5 minutes. http://www.CubicleSoft.com/VerifyMyPC/
