Why you shouldn't use Dev-C++

[Andre S. Veteran]

Old myths are tough to dispel, and among these, that Dev-C++ is somehow still a good IDE today. Teachers recommend it in universities (yes!) and beginners don't understand why their perfectly legit programs don't compile.

Someone at cplusplus.com's forums posted a good article about it recently, so I thought I'd spread the word. Hopefully the more it'll spread the less Dev-C++ will be used.

Why we've deprecated Dev-C++

It all boils down to one reason:

Dev-C++ hasn't been updated since 2005.

From there, there are 3 main problems with the lack of any updating.

The included MinGW is obsolete.

The many known bugs may never be fixed.

The IDE lacks the features of more modern IDEs.

I'll go over each of these in order.

The included MinGW is obsolete.

MinGW is an irregular acronym which stands for "Minimalist GNU for Windows". It includes a various set of tools commonly found on many *nixes including the g++ compiler and gdb debugger, which Dev-C++ makes use of.

A problem with Dev-C++ not being updated in computer centuries is that the bundled MinGW is several years old, and as a result the compiler doesn't work nearly as well on new systems as a hot-out-of-the-oven dish of MinGW's g++ would. It's a whole major version behind... Read the rest at C++ : Forum : Articles : Why we've deprecated Dev-C++.

[ObiWanToby]

I had a class last quarter that used Dev C++. It was pretty hard going back and forth between Dev C++ and Visual Studio at home.

[ZekeComa]

People who still program in dev-c++ need to just quite programming. It's like still programming in Visual Studio 6. You ain't learning standard C++. Hell you ain't even getting anything beneficial from it. Except hacks to get around pre-ansi C++ standard, that pretty much won't even work on today's standard compilers. If your class still requires you to use Dev-C++. You might as well slap them and quit. Because you are just learning how to programming pre-ansi pre-C++ standard.

[Xilo]

Also, why use Dev-C++ when there's a free version of VS C++?

[+Majesticmerc MVC]

People still use Dev-C++? Holy outdated moly Batman!

I did actually hear a rumour at one point that Dev-C++ is still active, you just have to download and compile from their SVN repo. This is just a rumour though, Eclipse is still better, so there's no point bothering :p

[tiagosilva29]

I remember using that about 7 or 8 years ago on Windows. The university I was attending at the time was using Visual C++ 6 on Windows 2000.

[that dude]

They force us to use it in my university (UWS).

Although most of us in class would prefer to use somethin else, unfortunately all of our assignments and whatnot that we submit are all complied and checked in Dev C++.

To add, they also changed the dedicated computers for the Computing students to Macs. We are advised to virtually boot Windows 7. Why they bought 500+ macs, just to boot a virtual copy of Windows 7 is beyond me.

[Descartes]

They don't force it in my University (we've actually got VS2010 installed) but they do that in my friend's high school. When he told me, I wasn't sure whether to laugh or cry. :|

[Sandor]

People still use Dev-C++? Holy outdated moly Batman!

I did actually hear a rumour at one point that Dev-C++ is still active, you just have to download and compile from their SVN repo. This is just a rumour though, Eclipse is still better, so there's no point bothering :p

Universities in particular can be quite slow to adapt and update what they teach.

When I was at uni in 2006, one of the classes I took was heavily into NetBIOS. What a waste of time.

[Ricky65]

I'd recommend people do themselves a favour and ditch old IDE's like this and VS 6. Get VS 2010!

[Stetson]

The main reason that it's used in universities I believe is that it's one of the only single-install packages that gets you up and running for standard C programming. No messing with cygwin or minGW, just one installer. Especially for an intro class the ease of setup is important, you don't want to spend weeks out of the semester trying to get everyone set up to compile programs.

I remember trying VC++ Express once to do a C programming assignment, and it seemed to me like it wasn't really set up for that. I ended up just using XCode (which has a standard project template for a plain, no-frills, platform agnostic command-line C application) while everyone else had weird errors with Dev C++.

I witnessed once a program that looked perfectly fine. I read over the whole thing a few times, and it would not compile. Finally they quit Dev C++, loaded it back up with the same project file, and it compiled just fine! :blink:

I'm sure that if there were an alternative free IDE that was easy to install, modern, well supported, and less buggy and had a simple C program template that it would gain usage fairly quickly. Also being GCC-based or at least very GCC-compatible is important. Lots of professors I know code on OSX or Linux systems.

VC++ Express is great, especially for being a free app, but to me it seems pretty cluttered and also overkill for an Intro to C class.

[Flawed]

GNU GCC/GDB FTW !

./configure CFLAGS='-O2 -ansi -Werrors -s'

Optimise, stdc89, warnings as errors, and strip :D

[MFH]

The main reason that it's used in universities I believe is that it's one of the only single-install packages that gets you up and running for standard C programming. No messing with cygwin or minGW, just one installer.

Well the question IMHO should be: If they are using Windows why do they use cygwin or minGW? If they want to use Unix-tools, why not use a Linux to begin with?

I remember trying VC++ Express once to do a C programming assignment, and it seemed to me like it wasn't really set up for that. I ended up just using XCode (which has a standard project template for a plain, no-frills, platform agnostic command-line C application) while everyone else had weird errors with Dev C++.

Personally I never had problems with VC++ Express to do C-programming, but I never did C99, which is not fully supported in VC++ Express - and never will be for that matter?

[Andre S. Veteran]

I'm sure that if there were an alternative free IDE that was easy to install, modern, well supported, and less buggy and had a simple C program template that it would gain usage fairly quickly. Also being GCC-based or at least very GCC-compatible is important. Lots of professors I know code on OSX or Linux systems.

Code::Blocks?

[The Angry Bunny]

When I took my C++ class last semester they made us use Dev-C++. I absolutely hated it. (Granted, this was at a Community College, but they did have access to Visual Studio 2008 (They wouldn't update to 2010 for whatever reason).

Now whenever I program in C++ I use my copy of VS 2010, but my classes are more focused on VB now anyway.

[Stetson]

Well the question IMHO should be: If they are using Windows why do they use cygwin or minGW? If they want to use Unix-tools, why not use a Linux to begin with?

While the professors can use Linux all they want, chances are the 200 kids sitting in the lecture hall have Windows laptops, with a few Macbooks here and there.

Code::Blocks?

I believe that still requires you to do your own install of Cygwin or MinGW.

[Andre S. Veteran]

I believe that still requires you to do your own install of Cygwin or MinGW.

Nope, there's an installer with MinGW included.

[Stetson]

Nope, there's an installer with MinGW included.

Ah, in that case it seems like a good alternative.

[ZekeComa]

I wouldn't suggest using Code::Blocks, it's a crappy IDE. If you're Windows use Visual Studio 2010, Linux use KDevelop4, Mac OS X, use XCode.

[Hardcore Til I Die]

People who still program in dev-c++ need to just quite programming. It's like still programming in Visual Studio 6. You ain't learning standard C++. Hell you ain't even getting anything beneficial from it. Except hacks to get around pre-ansi C++ standard, that pretty much won't even work on today's standard compilers. If your class still requires you to use Dev-C++. You might as well slap them and quit. Because you are just learning how to programming pre-ansi pre-C++ standard.

If somebody builds a working program that does what they intended it to do in Dev-C++ then they have succeeded in what they set out to do and certainly don't need to "just quite programming." :rolleyes:

[Andre S. Veteran]

I wouldn't suggest using Code::Blocks, it's a crappy IDE. If you're Windows use Visual Studio 2010, Linux use KDevelop4, Mac OS X, use XCode.

Care to elaborate why Kdevelop would be better than Code::Blocks on Linux? I've used both and Code::Blocks seemed more intuitive and robust. Although now I'd probably use Monodevelop.

[TechFreak:)]

I wouldn't suggest using Code::Blocks, it's a crappy IDE. If you're Windows use Visual Studio 2010, Linux use KDevelop4, Mac OS X, use XCode.

Visual Studio 2010 C++ doesn't have Intellisense for CLI projects, so it's better to use VC++ 2008 for Windows Forms.

[_bobcat_ Veteran]

What kind of uni would force you to use a particular IDE? That's bizarre :/ I guess I was really fortunate, we used whatever we wanted on whatever OS we wanted after the first few weeks (when they baby'd those who needed it). The uni itself had both Windows and Linux machines, too. Good teachers and choice ftw!

As for Dev-C++, I had forgotten it existed :p Not sure I've used it for about five years.

[firey]

What kind of uni would force you to use a particular IDE? That's bizarre :/ I guess I was really fortunate, we used whatever we wanted on whatever OS we wanted after the first few weeks (when they baby'd those who needed it). The uni itself had both Windows and Linux machines, too. Good teachers and choice ftw!

At my College, for anything MS Based we had to use Windows XP. We also had to use Visual Studio 2005, last year of college we got to upgrade to 2008 for VB, C#, And C++. Any database stuff was all MSSQL with the standard MS IDE for MSSQL. For Java we could use any IDE however the Teacher wanted us to use NetBeans and all examples he did would be in NetBeans.

We had a couple web-design classes which aside from the DreamWeaver and Photoshop requirements, we could use any text-editor for PHP, HTML. However all ASP websites had to be written in Visual Studio 2005.

We got to do minor Linux work.. however it was for Linux, and for the purpose of learning, not as an everyday sort of thing (was for a networking/security course). Our School was one of the MS based Schools so we had the Full MSDNAA and Dreamspark and all that.

[Andre S. Veteran]

Visual Studio 2010 C++ doesn't have Intellisense for CLI projects, so it's better to use VC++ 2008 for Windows Forms.

Agreed, this is completly ridiculous though. I'm lucky enough to be using VS2010 Ultimate but there's no freakin intellisense at all for C++/CLI, and stuff like Go To Definition is flaky at best. That's what you get for a product that costs thousands of dollars?