Thread: whats the best c++ compiler to learn windows programming?

I'm currently using Dev c++ 4.9.9.2, and learning from the tutorial http://www.winprog.org/tutorial/index.html.

I'm understanding everything fine, but the tutorial keeps mentioning a visual resource editor. Dev C++ allows the use of resources, but there is nothing visual about it, just basically a text editor.

Now even though i don't want a click and play compiler, I don't want to make learning c++ any harder then it needs to be.

What c++ compilers did people here use to learn windows programming?

Thanks in advance

You can get "Visual Studio Express" from Microsoft. It has the most important parts of Visual Studio itself, but lacks some of the "big development" features.

Or you can probably find half a dozen gaphical resource editors with google, if you prefer that way.

Notice that this has NOTHING to do with the compiler itself. The resource editor is an editor, and whilst it may come as part of the package along with the compiler, it's a separate componet.

--
Mats

I completely agree. Learning C++ is a whole project in itself. Trying to learn the Window API at the same time just makes it more complicated. Do one thing first (C++ would be my recommendation), then the other.

Of course, you don't need to be 100% fledged in C++ (that takes a while), but you need to know at least a good part of it before you start using it for Windows programming.

If you haven't got enough C++ under your belt, you are not going to get very far in writing Win32 applications in the first place.

--
Mats

Originally Posted by matsp

You can get "Visual Studio Express" from Microsoft. It has the most important parts of Visual Studio itself, but lacks some of the "big development" features.

Or you can probably find half a dozen gaphical resource editors with google, if you prefer that way.

Notice that this has NOTHING to do with the compiler itself. The resource editor is an editor, and whilst it may come as part of the package along with the compiler, it's a separate componet.

--
Mats

Thanks, new to windows programming, so even though i know how to do C++, there are certain things I'm still unsure of for programming in windows API (For example before then, i though a resource editor was something that was part of the compiler)

Thanks for your help

Originally Posted by matsp

I completely agree. Learning C++ is a whole project in itself. Trying to learn the Window API at the same time just makes it more complicated. Do one thing first (C++ would be my recommendation), then the other.

Of course, you don't need to be 100% fledged in C++ (that takes a while), but you need to know at least a good part of it before you start using it for Windows programming.

If you haven't got enough C++ under your belt, you are not going to get very far in writing Win32 applications in the first place.

--
Mats

hehe you posted that as i was writing.

I do know a good deal of c++ (OOP, functions, variables, pointers, vectors, arrays, etc) and even though i haven't gone into DOS graphics, the C++ aspect is not a problem for me, as i have gone through all of the tutorials on the website up to the Open GL (I felt it was rushing the windows programming bit and I don't try to run before i can walk )

Ok, that's fine then (but it wasn't in your original question, which is why I agreed with the other poster). Did you find a better resource editor?

--
Mats

Lol. Now I know that resource editors are different from c++ compilers, I now realise that my first post makes it sound like I'm trying to do both
(I still have a default mindset that windows programming is just a section of c++ like Classes or Vectors, even though I know that not to be the case)

I'm going to try the Visual Studio recourse editor, since it was made by Microsoft, so in theory should be the best