What to use?

[silenthunder]

I'm to be starting a college course on the C++ language soon, and I want to get an early start with C. What software can I/should I use to code in these languages, and what compilers should I use?

[vezzy]

gcc, a text editor and some library references in hand should be enough.

Normally I'd advise against the usage of an IDE, but for a beginner going with C, I'm ambivalent. Try to get the feel of the language in a basic text editor first, though.

[bluechill]

Use ether gcc & g++ or clang & clang++.  Clang isn't as well known as FCC but its what apple uses by default on OS X and it runs on all platforms except windows I believe.  It has a *ton* better error support than gcc and has nice features like code analysis and warnings for optimizations gcc doesn't have.  Code analysis will help you figure out those pesky bugs you don't understand why they're happening, it is also a feature gcc doesn't have.  I would avoid ms c and msvc++ because they're way behind on C++11 and also don't support posix typically that well. They also are on windows and no offense to windows, but it's a mess to learn programming on because of #include <windows.h>.  I would also stick to the main stream compilers because they're better supported and have better standards support typically.  Those compilers are GNU GCC, Clang (LLVM), and MSVC(++). 

[rasenove]

I personaly like IDEs. I suggest code::blocks for you, its very simple and has a built-in c and c++ compiler. Very good choice for beginners.
And i suggest you try out as many ide as you like. It really depends on the user and his preferences. Ill say, code::blocks and Netbeans is a must to try.
EDIT:
@bluechill; clang does run on windows.

[bluechill]

@bluechill; clang does run on windows.

hrmm that's new then.  That didn't used to be the case.

Also one other thing @OP

I typically would suggest your use of an IDE depends on what you're doing.  If you're doing large projects an IDE makes sense.  If you're just doing a one file program which is under a thousand lines of code, an IDE doesn't really make sense and instead something like nano makes more sense.  By that I mean an IDE w/ project.  You can use an IDE like Xcode or VS for single files *but* without a project there isn't any syntax highlighting or other useful niceties you get from a project.

As for IDEs I recommend, I would recommend Xcode on OS X, Visual Studio 2010/2012 on Windows, and Code::Blocks on Linux.  For text editors I recommend nano or vim because both have syntax highlighting if you configure it (but no autocomplete).  On Windows, I don't use anything but VS so I don't have a suggestion for text editors.

[rasenove]

hrmm that's new then.  That didn't used to be the case.

well, you probably didnt know becaus its not their official release.
www.clang.llvm.org/get_started.html

[Lupus]

... but it's a mess to learn programming on because of #include <windows.h>.

My University used Visual Studio 2010/12 for my C++ course, and we literally never saw #include <windows.h>.  All our programs ran perfectly well.  In fact, our professor would use Linux and gVim in class and programs transferred from VS2012 to gVim and vice-versa performed just fine. 


@Silenthunder:


While using a full IDE may not be completely necessary, I would recommend getting used to one before you begin your course.  As I stated above, my university used VS2012.  I have a friend at another Uni who used Netbeans.  Those two are pretty common for C++, so I'd imagine it will be one of those.  Even if you don't use it full-time during the summer, do take some time to get acquainted and comfortable with one or both of those.  That will give you a leg-up in the course.

[Kulverstukas]

You guys are forgetting something about an IDE. The most convenient feature of every decent IDE, which is the reason I mainly use IDE's, is the syntax correction, spell checking, syntax suggestion and of course better way to debug stuff.

Even bluechill can't deny those

[bluechill]

My University used Visual Studio 2010/12 for my C++ course, and we literally never saw #include <windows.h>.  All our programs ran perfectly well.  In fact, our professor would use Linux and gVim in class and programs transferred from VS2012 to gVim and vice-versa performed just fine. 

Yes but that assumes you're doing completely CLI stuff which doesn't use things like named pipes, sockets, threading, process spawning, etc.  All of those things require #include <window.h> and are completely non-standard on windows.  So yes you can do it, but windows will either force you to do things against convention and POSIX (see _write which is ISO vs write which is POSIX) and  a few others.  Basically, with enough effort you can do a lot of stuff on windows without #include <windows.h> but once you start getting into advanced coding, you really can't avoid it and most beginners will tend to use #include <windows.h> anyways because it's there and it's "easy" to use.

@Kulverstukas syntax highlighting is nice but is found in things like nano.  Auto completion is nice but it's not crucial and I code a lot without it.

[Stackprotector]

man, sublime text, nano, gdb, gcc/g++ multilib