Thread: First program questions

./a.out


Quzah.

Originally Posted by spottedzebra

I am running both ubuntu linux and windows vista but I imagine that i will be doing most of my C programming on ubuntu because that is what it is designed for.

Designed for what???

But I have run into a snag; I am using Eclipse, heard it was good but I am not sure yet (if you have other editor suggestion by all means suggest them).

There are a couple of IDEs. My favorite for Windows is Visual Studio.
Here is a short list: SourceForge.net: Integrated Development Environment - cpwiki

o_O
The OS isn't "designed" for programming just because it includes a compiler.
Download an IDE for any platform and you're good to do. You can't get much closer than that. You'll still need a couple of tools separately from the compiler to do your programming, so...

Originally Posted by spottedzebra

I have coded some C++, javascript, html, and css so coding is not new to me but I have heard C is no easy language to tackle.

If you're coding in a bunch of languages like that, it might be better not to use an IDE especially if it does not support all of them. Otherwise you have to get used to separate tools for everything, which is really a waste of time.

My advice is to just use the command line on linux for gcc and gdb (there are several stand-alone GUI versions of gdb too, such as ddd), and then use a good text editor that supports syntax highlighting for any language (they do exist). My own preference is gvim: although it has a steep initial learning curve, it's well worth it, it has most (and more) of the features of a C/C++ IDE (except the built in debugging and compiling), it's programmable, and you can use it for anything (not just C/C++ and Java, etc).

http://www.vim.org/

The command line on linux is the place to be. As you observe, it was intended to be a development environment, unlike windows. Compiling is dead simple and straightforward. Everything else is there, since GUI's are mostly just built as front-ends to to console commands. And you can get a lot more done without having to open fifteen different GUI's. If you want to program on linux, I'd say using the command line (and the standard apps it provides) as much as possible is a must. Also, if you use gvim, it's the GUI version of vim, which can be fired up instantly in a terminal to do something quickly, so you don't have to bother finding the file in a browser and sending it to the GUI editor.*

Just pick a nice low-contrast background image for your X terminal

* if you compile gvim with "server" built in, you can send files to it straight from the command line via vim --remote filename, but distro packages are not built this way