IDE for C++

What are the most used IDE for C++ ?
Which is suitable for Windows ?

I am not big fan of IDEs unless my organization mandate it. Moreover no IDE is best for an OS, it may be best for your requirement or to your taste.

  • I have used Visual Studio most (I use visual studio 2010 express edition, it is free). The command line version cl is also useful for some tasks. And I think MS Visual studio is most used. (AFAIK)
  • I have also used exclipse with C++ plugin, but I still prefer Visual studio.
  • DEV-C++ is also a good choice.
  • Netbean is also available with C++ plugin, but I never used it.

Use all of them for some time as find the one that fits best to your need.

I have used codeblocks. it seems fine with a debugger and variable watches.

Sublime Text is Best for Competitive Programming

All you need for competitive programming are the following things.

Should be fast (rules out certain heavy weight IDEs)

Easy switching/integration with the compiler.

Auto-complete so you don’t make silly mistakes (Kate, Sublime have it by default, You could also get a macro in VIM)

Automatic and language aware indentation, and parenthesis matching

I use Sublime Text for a few reasons.

Ability to add multiple templates and snippets (can be done in VIM as well, but lower learning curve) for e.g. I use for(int i=0;i< VariableName;i++){} quite often which is available to be on subl easily, and this is possible in other IDEs as well, just that I am used to subl.

Extremely fast switching between files, in fact faster than all IDEs I have used, if you get familiar with the Ctrl+P shortcut, else the sidebar helps.

Multiple cursors by default (Again VIM + Macros), for quickly changing multiple things (for example you decide to convert Char Array into STL String, etc)

Little known feature is you can build (i.e compile) from the editor itself, and just shift to a terminal window to run.

Handles both mouse and keyboard really well.

Powerful fuzzy code completion.

Credits --> Abhimanyu

You can find Some best Answers here --> http://www.quora.com/CodeChef/Being-a-competitive-programmer-which-is-the-best-IDE-to-use

2 Likes

No IDE, (g)vim all the way :smiley:

I’m a big fan of gvim :slight_smile:

Hi! I was searching for a light-weight ide for competitive programming. Inspired by TextPad and Sublime Text, I just built one: https://github.com/svr8/Desk
Do give it a try…
Thanks!

CLion is best in my opinion. The greatest thing about is that it contains on the pass parser. That is any syntactical error can be detected while writing code itself(it’s same as IntelliJ(for Java), PyCharm(Python) or Android Studio), this saves a lot of time while writing code during Short Contests as you don’t need to first compile your code to check syntactical error and then go through a rigrous process to fix them. Apart from this it also has features that any other standard IDE has, like Auto Code Completion, Syntax Highlighting and Support for Debugging.

Although CLion is not a free product you can get it for free if you are a student(or teacher) by getting Jet Brains’ student’s license which can be renewed after every one year.