Need suggestions for: C++ IDE and threading/GUI libraries.

[Daniel Pitts]

A little background first. I've done a bit of C++ programming in the
past, but then fell in love with the ease of multithreaded and GUI
programming in Java. I've been using Java for a long time now and have
learn quite a bit about OO design, and its application in Java. I'd
like to re-enter the world of C++, but I feel reluctant to give up my
favorite IDE (IntelliJ IDEA) and easy-to-use Swing GUI framework.

I'm not looking to start a flame war, so I'd prefer hearing the merits
of your suggestion, without criticizing other suggestions.

The projects I will be doing initially will be strictly
non-professional, personal projects. In particular, I'd like to be able
to quickly get up and running with single frame.

Actually, my goal is to re-write a simple multi-threaded Ray Tracer of
mine in c++. Yes, yes, I know their are plenty that are already way more
sophisticated than I'll probably ever be able to create... Its an
exercise, nothing more.

I'm comfortable with either a Linux or Windows, although I'd prefer
Windows for now.

So, with all that in mind.
What would be a good IDE to invest time and maybe some (preferably
small amount of) money in?
What GUI framework should I check out? Ease of getting set up is
the primary goal, portability is secondary or lower at the moment.
What should I look into for create a multi-threaded c++ program? I'm
familiar with a lot of concurrency issues, but only specifically to Java.

Thanks in advance for all who feel like suggesting something,
Daniel.

 

[Ioannis Vranos]

A little background first. I've done a bit of C++ programming in the
past, but then fell in love with the ease of multithreaded and GUI
programming in Java. I've been using Java for a long time now and have
learn quite a bit about OO design, and its application in Java. I'd
like to re-enter the world of C++, but I feel reluctant to give up my
favorite IDE (IntelliJ IDEA) and easy-to-use Swing GUI framework.

I'm not looking to start a flame war, so I'd prefer hearing the merits
of your suggestion, without criticizing other suggestions.

The projects I will be doing initially will be strictly
non-professional, personal projects. In particular, I'd like to be able
to quickly get up and running with single frame.

Actually, my goal is to re-write a simple multi-threaded Ray Tracer of
mine in c++. Yes, yes, I know their are plenty that are already way more
sophisticated than I'll probably ever be able to create... Its an
exercise, nothing more.

I'm comfortable with either a Linux or Windows, although I'd prefer
Windows for now.

So, with all that in mind.
What would be a good IDE to invest time and maybe some (preferably
small amount of) money in?
What GUI framework should I check out? Ease of getting set up is the
primary goal, portability is secondary or lower at the moment.
What should I look into for create a multi-threaded c++ program? I'm
familiar with a lot of concurrency issues, but only specifically to Java.

Thanks in advance for all who feel like suggesting something,
Daniel.

If you prefer Windows-only applications, I suggest you learn about .NET.
Also you can download Visual C++ 2008 Express Edition for free.

CLI is an ISO standard defining a Virtual Machine. .NET is a
CLI-compliant VM. Another CLI-compliant VM is Mono. Both .NET and Mono
are installed on top of Windows like the Java Virtual Machine (JVM).


What is commonly called "Java", is actually two things: Java/JVM, that
is Java the language syntax and the JVM.

SUN could allow more languages to interact with JVM, as MS does for .NET.

C++/CLI is an ECMA-standardised C++ syntax (in other words an extension
to ISO C++) that takes advantage of all CLI facilities, by keeping
native code (ISO C++ code) and managed code (C++/CLI) code as separate
notions while allowing them to be intermixed at the same time.


C#/CLI is also an ECMA-standardised language (syntax) that takes
advantage of most CLI facilities.


C++/CLI is the most powerful of all .NET languages, as MS says, C++ is
the systems programming language of .NET.


For example you can provide a managed interface (written in C++/CLI) to
native C++ code, including compile-time templates. For example you can
even write C++/CLI generics code as a managed interface to compile-time
ISO C++ templates. The other .NET languages can not do stuff like that.\


Also an interesting thing that C++/CLI provides and that C#/CLI and the
rest of .NET languages do not provide, is deterministic destruction and
objects with stack semantics.

To accomplish this, C++/CLI allows to define both a destructor (for
deterministic destruction) and a finalizer (called when the object is
garbage collected and only if the destructor was not called before), for
managed classes.


Examples of deterministic destruction of managed objects:

// Managed class
ref class SomeClass
{
String ^stringVal;

// ...

public:

// Destructor
~SomeClass ()
{
// Does something
}

// Finalizer
!SomeClass()
{
~SomeClass();
}
// ...
};



//Deterministic destruction
// SomeClass::~SomeClass() is called

void somefunc()
{
SomeClass ^h= gcnew SomeClass;

// ...

delete h;
}


//Deterministic destruction
// SomeClass::~SomeClass() is called

// Stack semantics
void somefunc()
{
SomeClass obj;

// ...

// obj is destroyed at the end of its scope.
}


An interesting reading about this:

http://www.gotw.ca/publications/C++CLIRationale.pdf

 

[Davis King]

A little background first. I've done a bit of C++ programming in the
past, but then fell in love with the ease of multithreaded and GUI
programming in Java. I've been using Java for a long time now and have
learn quite a bit about OO design, and its application in Java. I'd
like to re-enter the world of C++, but I feel reluctant to give up my
favorite IDE (IntelliJ IDEA) and easy-to-use Swing GUI framework.

I'm not looking to start a flame war, so I'd prefer hearing the merits
of your suggestion, without criticizing other suggestions.

The projects I will be doing initially will be strictly
non-professional, personal projects. In particular, I'd like to be able
to quickly get up and running with single frame.

Actually, my goal is to re-write a simple multi-threaded Ray Tracer of
mine in c++. Yes, yes, I know their are plenty that are already way more
sophisticated than I'll probably ever be able to create... Its an
exercise, nothing more.

I'm comfortable with either a Linux or Windows, although I'd prefer
Windows for now.

So, with all that in mind.
What would be a good IDE to invest time and maybe some (preferably
small amount of) money in?
What GUI framework should I check out? Ease of getting set up is
the primary goal, portability is secondary or lower at the moment.
What should I look into for create a multi-threaded c++ program? I'm
familiar with a lot of concurrency issues, but only specifically to Java.

Thanks in advance for all who feel like suggesting something,
Daniel.

IDE:
If you want to do programming on Windows then you can't really beat
the new free versions of visual studio express. Although if you want
a really powerful editor I suggest you check out Vim (http://
www.vim.org). It runs on every platform I'm aware of including
windows and integrates with visual studio. But, I have to admit that
during the first 2 or 3 weeks of learning Vim you will want to kill
yourself since learning it is a pain. However, it is my favorite
editor by far and once you get good at it using any other editor feels
like trudging through molasses by comparison.

Build System:
Another useful tool for C++ development is CMake (http://
www.cmake.org). CMake is basically a project makefile except it
allows you to create your makefiles in a portable format. If you
really don't care about the ability to compile your projects on
multiple platforms then you may want to pass on this (although you
should take a look at it anyway). So for example, I use CMake for all
my projects and when I want to build one of them, on any platform, I
simply invoke CMake. It creates the appropriate build environment for
whatever platform I'm currently on, be it a visual studio project, gcc
and gmake makefiles, or whatever.

C++ Libraries:
There are a number of good libraries out there but I'll plug mine
If you want to take a look it is at http://dclib.sourceforge.net and
includes all the threading functionality you should need (including
the Monitor synchronization approach like java does). It also
includes a simple GUI framework that would allow you to display an
image on the screen along with a few buttons quite easily.

-Davis

 

[Daniel Pitts]

IDE:
If you want to do programming on Windows then you can't really beat
the new free versions of visual studio express. Although if you want
a really powerful editor I suggest you check out Vim (http://
www.vim.org). It runs on every platform I'm aware of including
windows and integrates with visual studio. But, I have to admit that
during the first 2 or 3 weeks of learning Vim you will want to kill
yourself since learning it is a pain. However, it is my favorite
editor by far and once you get good at it using any other editor feels
like trudging through molasses by comparison.

Quite in love with Vim myself, but I've gotten use to a much more
heavyweight IDE. Even heavier than Visual Studios; I would have thought
they'd have make a useful auto-complete by now, instead of this
half-broken and you-still-have-to-type-out-most-of-it (un)Intellisense.

Build System:
Another useful tool for C++ development is CMake (http://
www.cmake.org). CMake is basically a project makefile except it
allows you to create your makefiles in a portable format. If you
really don't care about the ability to compile your projects on
multiple platforms then you may want to pass on this (although you
should take a look at it anyway). So for example, I use CMake for all
my projects and when I want to build one of them, on any platform, I
simply invoke CMake. It creates the appropriate build environment for
whatever platform I'm currently on, be it a visual studio project, gcc
and gmake makefiles, or whatever. I'll check it out.
C++ Libraries:
There are a number of good libraries out there but I'll plug mine
If you want to take a look it is at http://dclib.sourceforge.net and
includes all the threading functionality you should need (including
the Monitor synchronization approach like java does). It also
includes a simple GUI framework that would allow you to display an
image on the screen along with a few buttons quite easily.

-Davis

I'll check that out too.
Thanks for your reply!
Daniel.

 

[Erik Wikström]

Quite in love with Vim myself, but I've gotten use to a much more
heavyweight IDE. Even heavier than Visual Studios; I would have thought
they'd have make a useful auto-complete by now, instead of this
half-broken and you-still-have-to-type-out-most-of-it (un)Intellisense.

Unfortunately I think it is one of the better auto-completes for C++
(though I have not tested other editors recently), C++ is a complex
language which makes auto-complete hard. You should see the auto-
complete when writing C#, sometimes it knows what you want before you
have even started typing.

I'll check that out too.

You might also want to take a look at boost (www.boost.org), a
collection of various libraries, such as threading and more.

For a GUI framework I like Qt, but wxWidgets is also popular.

 

[Andy Champ]

Ioannis Vranos wrote:

C++/CLI is the most powerful of all .NET languages, as MS says, C++ is
the systems programming language of .NET.


For example you can provide a managed interface (written in C++/CLI) to
native C++ code, including compile-time templates. For example you can
even write C++/CLI generics code as a managed interface to compile-time
ISO C++ templates. The other .NET languages can not do stuff like that.\

We are working with C++ in a managed (.net) environment. For the most
part we are using "traditional" C++ - STL, rather than .NET APIs, but
with a C# GUI and some other managed features..

Just to give an opinion - I am reminded of Levassor on one of his early
gearboxes: "C’est brutale, mais ça marche" - it's brutish, but it goes.

I much prefer to run C++ in native mode, and C# for the Managed stuff;
I also find that there are odd occasions when you just can't do what you
want in .NET - though perhaps I shouldn't try to be such a control freak
- and that the debugger, under VC2005, isn't much good. It has a
nasty habit of not showing you the data.

Autocomplete has been mentioned. We use an add-on called VisualAssist
(or some similar spelling) from the much more memorably named Whole
Tomato Software (http://www.wholetomato.com/) which does improved
autocomplete and much more.But USD250 might be a bit much for home.

Andy

 

[Ioannis Vranos]

I much prefer to run C++ in native mode, and C# for the Managed stuff;

Why? Does C#/CLI provides any advantage that is better than C++/CLI?
(Note that I don't use both).

 

[Erik Wikström]

Why? Does C#/CLI provides any advantage that is better than C++/CLI?
(Note that I don't use both).

Yes and no. C# is built from the ground up to take advantage of the CLR
and the syntax is much cleaner (than C++/CLI). There are also a number
of cool features in the latest version of C# (3.0?). On the other hand
you have access to more CLR features with C++/CLI.