Saturday, January 2, 2010

[code] Code editor under Linux

For almost 3 years now I developed mainly under Windows. Not that I have anything against Linux, but I just did not feel the need to use it anymore. I recently transitioned to Linux again, mainly to benefit from latest advances of g++. I have to admit it was really enjoyable to get back to it, especially using Wubi / Ubuntu.

CMake was instrumental in ensuring a smooth transition of my code to Linux. Thanks to Anteru who helped a great deal, I was able to compile all my code on both Windows / Linux (almost) without trouble.
The only thing I was missing was a good code editor. I mean, gedit works great, but it's missing many of the features I came to enjoy in Visual C++ (and well, all these little seconds you gain add up to a great deal in the end).

At first I tried 'apt-get install eclipse-cdt'. CMake is able to directly generate project files for eclipse. Unfortunately, this did not work too well for me. Maybe because of our current project architecture (quite big, many dependencies), eclipse had difficulties and regularly crashed.

A bit disapointed, I then tried Code::blocks ('apt-get install codeblocks'). And, well, this is a very promising tool for me. It just works, it is fast, CMake has a back end for it as well. In just 10 minutes, I was feeling like home. So, I highly recommand it to those who are used to Visual C++ like IDEs.

Small tip: If like me you use dark backgrounds, you will find the color setting for the caret in "Settings > Editor > Margin and caret".

And btw, Happy new year ;-)

3 comments:

  1. I agree with you! I saw a friend using Code::blocks and I have to say it is a very efficient IDE.

    (Personally, I prefer to stay under windows right now...)

    ReplyDelete
  2. if you are using GNU autotools, Anjuta would be another nice choice for you :D

    ReplyDelete
  3. You should give the QtCreator a try. Also works directly with CMake project files, has pretty solid IntelliSense, and it looks quite nice.

    The binary installer works directly on any recent Ubuntu.

    ReplyDelete