I’m curious to know if anyone has any opinions on what compiler they prefer to use when programming with OpenGl, or even programming in general. I seem to be having alot of difficulties with the compilers I have tried.
There is no “best” compiler, just a compiler that suits you best. It’s all about personal opinions. Many seem to prefer MSVC. I prefer MinGW32. The compiler itself is not very crutial. It’s generally the developer environment that is important. I prefer using a good editor (w. syntax highlighting etc) + Makefiles. I have found that that way I can easily adopt new environments, and my projects are easy to port. Over the years I have compiled programs under AmigaOS, DEC OSF/1, Linux, Solaris, DOS, OS/2 and Win9x/NT (over 13 compilers in total), and I’m really glad that I didn’t stick with a special developer environment with its special project files etc, or I would not be able to compile my old projects as easily as I can now, and learning new environments & compilers would be much more difficult.
OK, that’s my opinion based on my experience, my needs and my priorities.
To find a list of compilers, editors and IDEs (integrated developer environments), see this page . Most of them are free, so you can try them out yourself.
Borland C++ 5.02 is all I need in order to write Windoze programs using OpenGL. However, as for myself, I want to try out MetroWerks CodeWarrior before I decide which compiler is the ‘best’ for me.
GCC is always the best. For Win32 you may look at the MinGW port.
I don’t care about the compiler as much as I care about the IDE. I prefer the Dev-C envirenment. It doesn’t have a fancy wizard bar (as of 4.0) but it does have an openGL template.
Something to think about…
g++ is the best and using kdevelop as a front end makes it even better. but kdevelop is only for linux you can get g++ if you get cygwin. i have a few compilers and the one i like the best is g++ it gives you more control and for me is even easyer to use.
I agree that the gnu tools are the best choice, because you can compile gcc as a cross compiler, which allows you to compile a windows executeable on linux and vice versa.
I prever VIM as ‘IDE’. (can be found at www.vim.org)) - without doubt the most powerfull editor.
just my 2 cents.
ya i forgot about vim i make many programs in vim as well. but i just find kdevelop alot easyer for large programs its more like VC++ with the class views and such.
I use bloodshed’s dev-c++
IDE is good and uses the gcc compiler, which is by far and away the best C/C++ compiler…
I have that too, dosnt it use g++/gcc? gcc only dose C g++ dose C++/C.