Microsoft wants C++ to replace C, which is fine with me. 14062

In comp.os.linux.advocacy, JeffRelf wrote on 12 Apr 2005 03:13:11 GMT

C is a language. MSC is an implementation of a compiler parsing that language. Got it now? Probably not. But MSC isn't the only offering -- DJGPP and GCC come immediately to mind, though the former is ancient (and probably no longer works, as it was originally designed for DOS environments), and the latter will probably not support the latest and great Microsoft Language Mangling Compilation Option(tm). (But then, it wasn't designed to. GCC+Cygwin+X is a semi-usable environment on Windows, for those who really want to go "the other way".)

Dunno if Borland is still offering their variant. I have a really old copy of that too (4.51), that chokes on your attempt at compiler instructions.

Dunno about the debugger (gdb); I've had some problems with it. The issues might be within the compiler proper; usually I end up, when it malfunctions, somewhere deep in a builtin .H file which is nowhere near where I expect it to end up. If I can reliably reproduce it I might file a bug report, but I rarely use debuggers anyway.

Of course gdb is a text-only debugger; if one wants something graphical, try kdevelop (I don't know if it calls gdb or not but it should!) or ddd (which is the one I prefer but it calls gdb for the actual debugging muckywork). There's probably a few others but those are the two I know about.

As for MS's SDK -- why is that so important to anyone here? This is, after all, a *Linux* newsgroup. However, Linux (or, more properly, GCC) has an interesting variant, called Mingw32, which is a *cross-compiler*, which can, at least in theory, digest your code (after heavy modification), spit it out as an .EXE on a Linux system, and then run on a Windows one (or on one's Linux system using WinE).

Whether it'll support the actual latest one: I don't know.

(Unfortunately, my Kayak-Win98 box isn't GL-capable. This is a hardware issue; there's not a lot I can do about it, as it doesn't have an AGP slot, either.)

And then there's Mono, which is a C#-.NET derivative. But you don't like C#.

If you're trying to get my goat, this is a very ba-a-a-a-a-a-ad attempt. If you're genuinely interested, dual-boot. (Back up your system, reparbreastion, reinstall Windows on one parbreastion, Linux on the other, and have at it.)

-- It's still legal to go .sigless.