Hi, I'm new here and to C++ and don't really know much about C++. I've finally decided that I'm going to try to learn C++ but I'm not sure of which compiler I should use. Can any of you tell me of some good compilers out there/ones you use/ones that are good for beginners and programs that work good with the Compiler :huh: ? I already have a book on C++ and 4 really helpful websites(many thanks to Newbie Faq :D ) so I'd just like your guy's opinion :) .

well there is some compilers in the newbie faq too

compilers:
MinGW
Borland
MSV++

IDE: (Integrated Developement Environment)
DevC++ is a a really good text editor with a lot of features comes with mingw c++ compiler i reccomend this (i use it myself)
http://www.bloodshed.net/dev/devcpp.html

btw dont forget to come by #c++ (irc channel)
click on the link in my sig :)

Great, Thanks. Ill be sure to check out the channel sometimes if I can.

Another nice IDE is MinGW Studio :)

good choice, learning C++

u guys forgot dev-C++

Actually No, dev cpp was mentioned

does anyone know of a good quality c++ compiler that's small in size(<1mb)?

Less than 1MB no way! but take a look at Dev-cpp with MingW

tcc

Or for a relay small one (under 2K)
otcc
Only supports a subset of C though.

Very Interesting! ^_^

in windows under 2k is difficult to find becasue just the windows PE and stubs take up 2k but most asm programs are under 10k unless you add in graphics.

Sorry, i thought you ment compiles to under 1mb, Umm i dont know of any compilers that are under 1 mb. i might be able to make one (in a few years).

What do you guys think about Visual C++? I've baught 6 books on C++ programming, DirectX, and OpenGL. 4 of them where compiled on a Visual C++ compiler. Would it be better for me to buy VIsual C++ and just start programming on a VC compiler or adapt to a different compiler?

don't get asnything older then VC++ 7

You can get VC++ 8 BETA2 for free and see if you like it for yourself.

Lets not recomend BETA software to new people.

BETA is for people that know what they are doing so that when it goes wrong they can but the dead and dying box back together.

Well, the reason why I would recommend it to beginners is that the compiled IDE is user friendly (or at least I find it user friendly). very functional and stable. The beta is at late stage already, and personally I haven't had a single problem after the first releases of the beta (and it was some weird error too, fixed now nonetheless). I doubt that any beginner would do anything that could possibly cause the compiler to not work at this stage, but I get your point, although I disagree with it for this specific case.

Never seen you made that comment when people recommand Dev-C++ as a IDE to try. ;) :P Version 5 that people is using has been in BETA for god know how many years. :lol:

Another IDE I found while searching around was Code::Blocks it has built in support to use the VC++ command line tools as well as several other compilers and works extremely well i think. You can find it at Code::Blocks.

I tried it before , quite nice just don't like how it handles identing

Well you can turn it of then. To be honest I although don't know what you couldn't like with it.