Which compiler for a learner of C?

[Richard Heathfield]

Rod Pemberton said:

Use a Microsoft compiler. They are notorious for non-conformance.

Microsoft's conformance to C90 is actually very good. I have seen a couple
of tiny nits raised here on comp.lang.c, in such dark corners of the
language that I need never fear encountering them in real life.

Just
read the comments by Michal Necasek (lead maintainer for OpenWatcom) on
openwatcom.contributors or openwatcom.users.c_cpp.

Have you a more specific reference?

Or, look at GCC C99 compliance page

I have never claimed that gcc is C99-conforming. Indeed, I have claimed the
opposite many times. I'm not sure what this has to do with anything.

or GCC extensions page. The point that you lack
confidence is rather meaningless when most of the strong competitors to
lcc-win32 fail on conformance...

Show me.

 

[pkirk25]

http://www.wxwidgets.org/wiki/index.php/MSVC_.NET_Setup_Guide

Works perfectly now.

I understand that a compiler does not need replacment as often as a
car. But new cars have air conditioning which makes them very
comfortable.

 

[pkirk25]

[snip

These are C++ errors, generated because you're letting the GUI name
your files for you and by default it calls them .cpp.

Spot on Mark. It took me a good 20 minutes of puzzling to realise that
the reason some files were failing to compile was the .cpp extension
which I had lazily let MS use while I was experimenting.

Thanks.

 

[Mark McIntyre]

Use a Microsoft compiler. They are notorious for non-conformance.

This isn't true. MS complies pretty well with C89/90 if you turn off
their extensions.

--
Mark McIntyre

"Debugging is twice as hard as writing the code in the first place.
Therefore, if you write the code as cleverly as possible, you are,
by definition, not smart enough to debug it."
--Brian Kernighan

 

[Malcolm]

Works perfectly now.

I understand that a compiler does not need replacment as often as a
car. But new cars have air conditioning which makes them very
comfortable.

The car analogy was just a joke.
Some women change clothes or hairstyles or whatever with a given frequency,
and get very self-righteous about maintaining standards. Of course most
people can't afford to do that with a car, though a few can.

Compilers work until the hardware or the software they are meant to work
with becomes obsolete.

 

[Mabden]

Just what are your issues with Jacob and his compiler?

Ummm, his web site has a link that says "Click me". But it doesn't do
anything.

Why would it say click me and then not do anything...?

I mean, that's just mean...

 

[Richard Bos]

Downloaded Bloodshed Dev-C++

Very nice but the default auto-indent woupd break my heart as I depend
on indentation.

You can turn that off, you know.

Richard