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up vote 7 down vote favorite

I am currently using dev++, I am a complete beginner, (Freshman CS major) learning C++. I can get one of the newest versions of visual studio (2008 or 2009 i think) for free through my school. Not sure if it is worth the trouble of getting. thoughts?

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8  
You may be able to get it directly from dreamspark.com instead of going through the "trouble" of getting it from school. – Mehrdad Afshari Jan 10 '11 at 8:32
This is an interesting question. There have been a bunch of people recently posting questions on Stack Overflow that are apparently learning C++ through legacy Borland compilers, like Turbo C++. I have never understood why, when there are great, free alternatives available. – Cody Gray Jan 10 '11 at 12:35
I agree with Mehrdad about checking out dreamspark. I was able to get Visual Studio 2010 Professional, as well as Microsoft Server 2008 Standard from that site using my school email. You have to verify in 12 months that you're a student, but definitely worth it! – Jetti Feb 11 '11 at 18:59

7 Answers

up vote 41 down vote accepted

If by "dev++" you mean this monstrosity, then drop it as fast as you can.

There have been no updates to Dev-C++ in over six years, it's buggy, comes with a really ancient version of gcc and is not worth the cost of the download.

Visual C++, on the other hand, is a world-class compiler and one of the best the IDEs available. That you can get it for free is great (even the Express Editions are light years ahead of Dev-C++) and I wouldn't hesitate.

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Yea, its what the class was using. – Matt Jan 10 '11 at 3:39
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@Matt: that's a shame because there are actually a number of open source IDEs (if your professors don't like the Microsoft one) that are actually kept up to date and work quite well (Code::Blocks, Eclipse, many others). – Dean Harding Jan 10 '11 at 3:58
+1, There's also an updated and actively-maintained fork of Dev-C++, called wxDev-C++. – greyfade Jan 10 '11 at 5:42
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Oh god. People use it for teaching!? Those poor students! – Earlz Jan 10 '11 at 6:29
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From Jamaica here, and I was taught programming with this and was told that visual studio complicated things. I eventually got the whole department to switch to visual studio the next semester. – Shawn Mclean Jan 10 '11 at 7:48
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up vote 15 down vote

I can't speak more highly of any IDE than Visual Studio. It's useless for Java and such, but it is great for C++ and incredible if you get into .NET. With a price point of Free, there's absolutely no reason it's not worth checking out at the minimum. I suppose it's not for everyone but odds are you'll love it.

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up vote 8 down vote

Given the distribution of future employment I would highly recommend using the most popular IDEs out there, free or otherwise. It is a very highly rated environment for C#. It can be a bit behind in its compliance with the most current C++ standard.

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3  
I do approve of MS hiring Herb Sutter to head up Visual C++. VS 2008 had very few discrepancies with the Standard, and VS 2010 comes with a good many features from the upcoming Standard. – David Thornley Jan 10 '11 at 19:12
up vote 5 down vote

Is your school a part of the Microsoft Academic Alliance? If so, you can pretty much get any MS product for free, apart from the Office suite of products.

It is worth checking with your school , as I have been able to get things such as VS professional edition, Windows 7 Professional, SQL Server Enterprise, Visual Studio Team System, all for free.

There are also a hell of a lot more products on there.

http://msdn63.e-academy.com/elms/Storefront/Home.aspx?campus=msdnaa_kc4916

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up vote 3 down vote

You can get Visual Studio 2010 for free by just downloading it of the Microsoft Web Site. It is not the full version, but is plenty good enough for learning.

http://www.microsoft.com/express/Downloads/#2010-Visual-CPP

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up vote 1 down vote

A lot of people have said they really like VC++ and recommend it. Honestly, I don't like VC++ much (it's not bad per-se, I just prefer a more command-line driven workflow with vim, make, gdb, etc.) and I'd still recommend that you get it. It's free, so there's essentially no downside to installing it and at least comparing it to what you are using now. As you are in school it's a great time to look at the breadth of options available and familiarize yourself with the pros and cons of each

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up vote 1 down vote

Point blank answer: YES.

You have to remember that, regardless of whether you get it from school (via the MSDNAA) or through DreamSpark, you are going to using a version with an academic license. Technically, that means you're supposed to only use it for school, although I don't know that there are people going around and looking at the metadata of people's source code to see what version they used.

If you want an alternative to both VS and Dev++, you could also use Eclipse, which has a C/C++ version, which would also help you transition to Java, if it's part of your curriculum.

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