Linux for development
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i SO want to start with "you youngsters have it easy", but you speak of X, which i have heard about, and have avoided ever going anywhere near, so i will let you off :) still, in lots of respect you have it EASY! i get to do lots of development on SCO UNIX now, what were you saying about compilers and debuggers? our code base is pure C, with the occasional C++ program thrown in if you are good. debugging is a well known game. you have two options: a) wait for the program to crash, and hope the call stack makes everything clear. remember that once it has crashed ALL you will get is a call stack, maybe. you cannot get any information out of any of the variables, or if you can no one will tell you how. you do get the addresses, sometimes, which helps to spot NULL pointers being passed around, which is often something. of course, this assumes you are lucky. the number of times i have studied a call stack that tells me "the program core dumped while core dumping", so i have a call stack of a call stack (or something like that) which means zero information. b) having eliminated A most of the time you have fprintf(stderr, "..."); there is actually some good news here, you get to use VIM :-D now at first you might hate VIM, but when you discover the power of the "increment this number by one" function combined with macros then you are in debug heaven, relatively speaking. chain together __FILE__, __LINE__, and an incrementing number into a VIM macro and i can insert 50 debug statements into a single function in a couple of minutes! debugging the way god intended us to, or at least the department head. now i did mention C++, so it is time to consider this joy. i LIKE the idea of moving to C++, i get access to the STL, to collection classes, to a STRING class!!! no more manually tracking the size of my char * (massive sigh of heavenly relief) except that this is SCO. it comes with the STL, i am assured of this by people who do not have to support our old code base. it does NOT, it comes with about 7 classes from the STL, that are nothing like STL classes, have different interfaces, and do not do any of what i want. but they do have overlapping names, so you cannot easily call the STL classes instead. so i looked into BOOST (i was told i was not allowed to use it *aaaggghhhh*) and i found, to my joy, some proper STL classes hidden somewhere in a strange directory! except that the compiler we get for C++ cannot compile the templates *sob*. we did finally get the Qt framework installed on this box, along
I feel for you - damn developing on SCO? Ickkkkk! But, I thought GCC ran on SCO? I know it does on the newer versions of SCO, maybe you guys have an older version of the OS? So if you're not using GCC, are you using some evil defunct compiler? Nasty! ¡El diablo está en mis pantalones! ¡Mire, mire! Real Mentats use only 100% pure, unfooled around with Sapho Juice(tm)! SELECT * FROM User WHERE Clue > 0 0 rows returned Save an Orange - Use the VCF!
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Jim Crafton wrote:
...there's no beer on earth that will be strong enough...
At the moment I'm drinking Southwark Stout 7.4% and in the past I have had beers in Champagne bottles with corks, quad something or other brewed that are > 12% alcohol. Michael Martin Australia "I controlled my laughter and simple said "No,I am very busy,so I can't write any code for you". The moment they heard this all the smiling face turned into a sad looking face and one of them farted. So I had to leave the place as soon as possible." - Mr.Prakash 24/04/2004
Michael Martin wrote:
I'm drinking Southwark Stout 7.4%
Hmm. Our beers 'round these parts tend to have 5.5%. :sigh: Jeremy Falcon
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Yeah you drink one for me - at the rate she's nagging me right now, there's no beer on earth that will be strong enough - I'm looking for straight shots of Everclear! :) ¡El diablo está en mis pantalones! ¡Mire, mire! Real Mentats use only 100% pure, unfooled around with Sapho Juice(tm)! SELECT * FROM User WHERE Clue > 0 0 rows returned Save an Orange - Use the VCF!
Jim Crafton wrote:
I'm looking for straight shots of Everclear!
Well it gets the job done. :laugh: Everclear is the only thing that's ever made me pass out actually. Jeremy Falcon
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Nemanja Trifunovic wrote:
Speaking of editors, Unix programmers belong to one of two distinct groups: good people use vim[^] :rose: and villians use emacs[^]
really good people install a plugin for Visual Studio that makes it work like VIM ;) or just keep VIM in their send to menu in windows :-D
zen is the art of being at one with the two'ness
feline_dracoform wrote:
really good people install a plugin for Visual Studio that makes it work like VIM or just keep VIM in their send to menu in windows
Ok, now you've done it. I just gotta know how to make the studio editor act like vim. I've hit :w so many times in the last year it isn't even funny anymore. Thanks very much, Larry
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2ASoft wrote:
Any suggestions for what flavor of linux and what compilers are better(best)?
If you insist on Linux (and I agree with Jeremy - it is not a real Unix), take a look at either some of Red Hat derivatives (like CentOS) or Novell/SUSE. For compilers, gcc is pretty much standard on Linux and is shipped with all distributions. If you are looking at a good IDE - forget it; if you have ever used Visual Studio, Linux IDEs will be nothing but frustration for you. Instead, just use some good editor. Speaking of editors, Unix programmers belong to one of two distinct groups: good people use vim[^] :rose: and villians use emacs[^] X| . Now, I am not going to tell you which one I prefer, cause I don't want to influence your decision ;) Good luck with Linux.
My programming blahblahblah blog. If you ever find anything useful here, please let me know to remove it.
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I hope this isnt that much of a programming question.... Anyways, I was just thinking of installing linux on one of my machines, you know, just to try development under it. I'll be using C++. Any suggestions for what flavor of linux and what compilers are better(best)? I DO realize I could google all this, but we have such a nice helpfull community here hehe :-D rara avis in terris
I think it's important to separate a couple of aspects of this. First, there is your familiarity with Linux and/or UNIX alternatives. If you're a relatively new Linux user, familiar with C++ software development, but not very familiar with Linux or UNIX itself, the "best" answer may be very different than if you were. A lot of veteran Linux buffs prefer Debian-based distributions, as they are quite powerful and flexible for the power user. Ubuntu is another popular one among power users. But for developers who want to spend their time coding and debugging, rather than being a Linux power user configuring things, I recommend SuSE Linux 10.0. (10.1 is available, but I've been having trouble with ATI video support on that version). Since it's new, I'm still suggesting 10.0 for a smoother install. SuSE Linux is one of the easiest to install and use. It's graphical, including the OS installer, and the Linux config tools are rich and should be reasonably familiar to Windows folks. Second, in terms of GUI programming on Linux, and simpler Windowing development, you should definitely look at Qt. I believe it's the easiest to use, very mature and very powerful. The only drawback is that commercial applications will require a commercial license, which is well worth the money, but yet quite expensive for independent work. If you're porting a game on behalf of a publishing company (and therefore can afford to by a Qt license), then by all means, absolutely go with Qt. This will also give you Windows and OS X support too (if you by those licenses). Or *IF* you're developing an open source application (specifically GPL as I recall), Qt is available for use under the GPL for free. Finally, in terms of game writing, I don't have a lot of experience with that on Linux/UNIX boxes, but I suspect that you will want to use OpenGL for the actual game graphics, unless you're developing a simpler 2D game (like a card game). There may even be Linux windowing extensions for basic windows in OpenGL that will allow you to do the game graphics and GUI without needing Qt or something else. But you also have to be aware that the *commercial* Linux game market is virtually non-existent (and the UNIX one is a pale shadow of the Linux one), so I'm kind of assuming this is a home "side" project that you're interested in doing for fun, not profit. If you release it under the GPL, you can just use Qt for free, and I would strongly advise you to do just that in this case. In general, I don't have a favourite OS. I don'
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I hope this isnt that much of a programming question.... Anyways, I was just thinking of installing linux on one of my machines, you know, just to try development under it. I'll be using C++. Any suggestions for what flavor of linux and what compilers are better(best)? I DO realize I could google all this, but we have such a nice helpfull community here hehe :-D rara avis in terris
Whatever. Suse, Debian, Ubuntu, Gentoo, Slackware, Mandriva... C/C++ IDEs: Anjuta, KDevelop, Code::Blocks (I recommend this last one because it's cross-platform). GUIs: Glade, QtDesigner, KDevelop (Designer). It's GNU/Linux, not Linux (because it's only the kernel developed by Linus and his friends).
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I hope this isnt that much of a programming question.... Anyways, I was just thinking of installing linux on one of my machines, you know, just to try development under it. I'll be using C++. Any suggestions for what flavor of linux and what compilers are better(best)? I DO realize I could google all this, but we have such a nice helpfull community here hehe :-D rara avis in terris
If I where you I would get a copy of Slackware (10.2 is the latest at the moment). This is an excellent distro for a number of reasons. 1) It is compact and Very Very reliable. 2)If you install it with KDE (byfar the best desktop on *ux) then it will provide you with all the tools you need to start C++ coding straight away (Kdevelop, QT Designer etc). 3)It doesn't provide very many config tools so it forces you to try and learn how to configure *ux. Oh and if you read reviews that it is hard to install, it was the first ever distro I tried and it worked first time for me. I have installed loads of distros since but keep going back to slack every time. The only warning I give is that the package managment is not as newbie friendly as some others you need to check for dependencies for any packages that you install. But this does give you the flexibility to build your system as you want. Good luck, hope you love linux!! Gonzo Oh, uh, good question. Now technically speaking, uhh, let's say, put me down as a... 'Whatever'?
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2ASoft wrote:
Any suggestions for what flavor of linux and what compilers are better(best)?
If you insist on Linux (and I agree with Jeremy - it is not a real Unix), take a look at either some of Red Hat derivatives (like CentOS) or Novell/SUSE. For compilers, gcc is pretty much standard on Linux and is shipped with all distributions. If you are looking at a good IDE - forget it; if you have ever used Visual Studio, Linux IDEs will be nothing but frustration for you. Instead, just use some good editor. Speaking of editors, Unix programmers belong to one of two distinct groups: good people use vim[^] :rose: and villians use emacs[^] X| . Now, I am not going to tell you which one I prefer, cause I don't want to influence your decision ;) Good luck with Linux.
My programming blahblahblah blog. If you ever find anything useful here, please let me know to remove it.
Vi(m) rocks I agree but I don't agree with Linux IDEs suck. You not worked with Kdevelop or CodeBlocks (which is available for windoz if you must)!! Oh, uh, good question. Now technically speaking, uhh, let's say, put me down as a... 'Whatever'?
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I hope this isnt that much of a programming question.... Anyways, I was just thinking of installing linux on one of my machines, you know, just to try development under it. I'll be using C++. Any suggestions for what flavor of linux and what compilers are better(best)? I DO realize I could google all this, but we have such a nice helpfull community here hehe :-D rara avis in terris
We are just winding down a major embedded Linux project using Qt. All of the development was done on RedHat Enterprise OS. The compiler used was gcc, with most of the guys using Kate as an editor. There are a couple of IDEs out there, take a look at Anjuta. Good Luck ;)
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feline_dracoform wrote:
really good people install a plugin for Visual Studio that makes it work like VIM or just keep VIM in their send to menu in windows
Ok, now you've done it. I just gotta know how to make the studio editor act like vim. I've hit :w so many times in the last year it isn't even funny anymore. Thanks very much, Larry