On Saturday, October 25, 1997 12:19 AM, Franco Gasperino [SMTP:awe@CET.COM]
wrote:
> Perhaps you should learn to program before you learn to
> use a slightly-more-complicated-than-average Win32
> compiler like MSVC. I seem to remember the phrase,
> "Learn to crawl before you learn to walk", but that
> was a long time ago...
>
MSVC can be a great way to get started. Circle will compile under the GUI
with astonishing ease.
Starting with a freshly unzipped copy of circle:
1) copy conf.h.win conf.h 2) Create New Project 3) add *.c and *.h to project.
4) settings/link add wsock32.lib 5) Compile
MSVC contains good help. Though be sure to avoid the MS specific pieces
like the plague.
Find In Files is a godsend. With MSVC5 you can have two of them operational
at once. Speeds up the tracking of code paths and locating other places in
the code where a routine or constant is used.
Source Safe gives you real version control. I can't say that there is anything
I would add to it, except to point out that SHIFT-DEL will copy stuff out of
the
DIFF view (it's not immediately obvious that you can select text and copy it
out.)
Integrated debugging allows the program to automatically put you at the line
that crashed. A couple mouse clicks and you have the values there for you
to see. The call stack is there as well, and you can have certain vars like
ch, vict, obj, buf, buf1, buf2 available in a window that automatically shows
up
when you are debugging a crash or have used the break/breakpoint functions.
One downside to MSVC .. that they still haven't fixed.. or as near as I can
tell
is that there isn't a way for sprintf arguments to be type checked. My FreeBSD
box
does that; very handy for those late night OLC menu creation sessions :-)
As far as MSVC being more complicated than average.. what's the comparison?
GNU project? Borland? Watcom?
I've tried them all. I especially hate Watcom's implementation, but that's
probably
a result of trying to figure out how to make NLM's and learn the program at
the
same time.
The GNU project's goal is noble. I am happy that there exists a free method
of compiling real C programs for win32. But I can't see myself using it, as I
would give up too much efficiency.
Borland's product is a feasable alternative. They write good code. I just
haven't
bought any programming languages from them since Turbo Pascal .. I hated the
TurboVision interface.. darn near turned me off of OOP until I figured out
that
TurboVision sucked.. not the concepts of inheritance and encapsulation :-)
--Mallory
Neither sweat, nor blood, nor frustration, nor lousy manuals
nor missing parts, nor wrong parts shall keep me from my task.
--Christopher Hicks
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