A question about MacVim vs other text editors...

Hi,

I'm beginning to learn C as the first language (no previous programming experiecen whatsoever). I currently have installed XCode, TextWrangler, Macvim. As a self-taught beginner who learns C as a hobby, should I use Xcode, TextWrangler or Macvim/Terminal?

I find Terminal quite interesting as I can learn gradually basic commands, but the author of the book I'm using never mentions Terminal or any other text editor; instead, he recommends Xcode, even though his books is obviously a book for beginners (as compared to many other books). When I do programs in Xcode, it seems to me that everything is there, ready made (text coloring, text highlights for keywords, etc...).

My plan is to have a working knowledge of C first before moving to C++ which is applied widely to my field of study. I don't have an ambition of becoming a well-versed programmer as I understand that it takes so many years of hard work, effort, etc... Also, most of the competent programmers have begun working with a computer since an early age. I'm not young and already have taken a career path that's very different from programming. But I do like programming stuffs and IT stuffs now.

I don't have time to go to programming courses because I already have to take my econ courses. So the only way is to choose self-study.

Can you recommend an appropriate approach for a newbie like me?

Thanks so much for your time and valuable help!

Well if "MacVim" has anything to do with vim the choice is obvious.

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My plan is to have a working knowledge of C first before moving to C++ which is applied widely to my field of study.

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May I strongly recommend you reconsider this plan? While C is syntactically pretty much a subset of C++, conceptually it's a very different language. C++ provides many features that make its use simpler and more (programmer time) efficient than C.

I'm sure there is Emacs for MacOS too. I personally prefer Emacs way over vi(m), but saying that to MK27 is probably like suggesting to a devout catholic that he should marry his daughter to a protestant... ;)

However, Xcode is probably the most complete IDE - and if you are a beginner, an IDE where you use the same application to write the code, compile the code and debug the code is probably the most simple-to-learn case. If you use a standalone editor, then you need to build the code on the command-line, then use a standalone debugger to find out why your code isn't doing what you expect, etc.

And I also agree with CornedBee that when your goal is to learn C++, you should NOT start by learning C. Knowing some basic C is certainly not a bad thing, but if C++ is your goal, then C++ is what you must learn. And learning C to become good at C++ is like learning Spanish because you want to learn Italian - yes, of course, if you ALREADY know Spanish, learning Italian would be a bit easier - but learning Spanish will also teach you a lot of "bad habits" that don't translate directly to Italian.

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Mats