I have a book called “C Programming in Easy Steps”.
It’s supposed to take you from knowing nothing to being somewhat knowledgeable (probably not professional, as there is sooooo much to programming that just can’t be covered in one book).
Anyway, one reason I decided to dual boot with Windows is that I thought for some strange resaon I might be able to concentrate on learning what I want on Linux; maybe because all the games (mostly) are for windows
OK, so the book said to type “gcc -v” in a command line to see if you have GCC in your linux distro.
Apparently I don’t, as it answered “bash: gcc: command not found”.
Am I just doing it wrong, or does my version of Ubuntu/linux not have GCC?
I would recommend a good IDE like Dev-C++ for Windows or whatever came with Linux to start out. Doing command line compiling can get tedious when you’re learning and exploring.
Being a hobbyist programmer myself on Linux, I can say that there are great benefits to starting out from the command line, rather than loosing yourself in the “point and click” abstraction of your IDE of choice.
You just get a better perspective on the process of compiling itself, and you can write and compile programs on any machine with any simple text editor and a GCC package directly, without the need to set up all your delicate IDE settings first.
“g++ -o mysdlprogram.bin mysdlprogram.cpp -lSDL” There, clean cut, and right to the point.
An IDE is really something that you crossover to when you know enough to compile working, stable apps without it. It’s a tool to help you streamline your operations “when you already have your shit together” for the most part.
If you’re just starting out, all an IDE is gonna do is provide you with a false sense of “moving forward faster”, when in fact you’ll need to come back on many occasions, and actually figure out the parts that your IDE was doing for you.
Lol, and you say that like it’s supposed to come standard. Windows doesn’t come with a standard IDE either, so I can’t understand your confusion here.
Anyway there are alot of great IDE’s for Linux, most of which can easily be downloaded through apt/synaptic. Anjuta and Kdevelop would be the 2 that come to mind.
Also a google search would give you a wider listing.
However, I still recommend starting with just a text editor and compiling from the command line if you are just starting.
I agree with Social stay away from IDEs untill you have masted the basics of programming & compiling from command line.
To get GCC go into synaptic and search for GCC, then install the program called GCC. Its that simple.
I’m not all too fond of Ubuntu’s default editor, so I would suggest you try out Kate also known as Kwrite. I find it a more flexible program and easier to code in.
Honestly, if you’re confused with an IDE, you don’t need to be bothering with programming or using a computer in general.
I didn’t imply that he should make GUI applications, I still think one should start out writing console applications, it’s just that keeping track of makefiles and juggling different compiler parameters can be tiring. Say what you want, but mastering command line compiling won’t do a damn thing in terms of programming skills.
He will be learning C for the first time, and an IDE will add an extra layer of complexity not needed to start. As long as he can compile & knows the command to do so, & can type in a text editor he is fine.
With an IDE added complexity is involved and if something goes wrong (especially when learning a new language) you wont know if its either what you have put in or you dont have the right dependencies or is it a limitation of the IDE? Or have you setup the IDE right? All these are extra problems that could be easily avoided.
Once he has figured out the language and is fairly good with it, he should go to an IDE (if needed).
