Developers: What IDE/Compiler to use for C++ Win32 development?

[GL]

I was looking at getting Visual Studio Enterprise (can't go wrong by getting something that has support for more than I need!). Unfortunately, even at academic pricing, it's CAN$500 and way out of my league. Similarly, VC++ Enterprise is $300, Pro is $150...all too expensive (maybe not Pro!). But VC++ Standard is $70. My question is, what are the differences between VC++ Standard/Pro/Enterprise (detailed differences...not just Ent is better than Pro is better than Standard please!)? Also...should I look into something maybe from Borland or perhaps use Metrowerks CodeWarrior? Please give me your opinions on the IDEs (how much you like it) and the compilers (how do they compare performance wise). Thanks in advance.

-GL

 

[GL]

Forgot to add that I'm using Windows 2000 Pro and have been doing dev work in emacs for win32 and using cygwin's g++ compiler. All in all, it's a pretty horrible development environment if you ask me.

-GL

 

[Argo]

Standard comes just with IDE and compiler. Both pro and enterprise come with a bunch of extra tools, like InstallShield creator, process viewer, etc... Unless you plan on doing some fancy stuff, standard should be enough for you.

 

[GL]

Thanks Argo...just a quick question about VC++. Can I use the IDE with different compilers (i.e. Borland or GCC)? I think I read somewhere that MS VC++ has different pre-processor directives and other things that makes portability between compilers difficult.

-GL

 

[Argo]

There could be a way to do that (in fact I think there is), but I don't know how to do that. Sorry All, I know that both compiler and linker are external modules, so you should be able to replace them easily.

 

[arcain]

I believe the standard version may not have an optimizing compiler. As for using other tools with the IDE, one possibility adding the program to the 'Tools' menu. I did this with 'make' when I was doing some palmpilot stuff with cygwin's gcc. I simply added 'make' to the tools menu, and could just run it, and it would build my app. The output of the make and other 'Tools' gets outputted in the same little window as the normal compiler's output.

There maybe other ways, but I'm not aware of them. I suppose somebody could make a plugin for GCC or something.

 

[GL]

arcain,

That's what I didn't want to hear. I really want an optimized compiler as I'm a performance freak...of course, I guess I'd be better off just getting VC++ and then purchasing Intel's compiler right?

-GL

 

[Train]

VC++ has the ability to plug in different Compilers, for example, you can plug in INtels Compilers that do very nice optimizations for Pentium Pros (MMX) PIII's (SSE) and P4's(SSE2) but those alone are quite pricey.
(Intels Version 5 C++ compiler with SSE2 Support is $399 last i checked)