Dev-C++ was one of the first IDEs that I got my hand on long ago. To me, Dev-C++ was a small software that can be downloaded and I could quickly do academic assignments with it.
In my college, people have been suggesting Dev-C++ for a quick download and just do the homework, for a few generations now. I recalled I used to have some problems with Dev-C++, mainly not understanding what exactly are mingw, different dependencies, different compilers, and all the complicated stuff.
When I tried to go for bigger projects, I always have the trouble of getting help. Other online helps seem to favor Visual Studio a lot more. For veteran developers who understand compilers and how things go around in software development, this may not be so difficult. But for people who are new to learning programming, is Dev-C++ a reasonable choice? Or should they not use Dev-C++ at all? Will the end justify the mean in the long run?
It’s my understanding that Dev-C++ hasn’t been supported for a long time and accepts a lot of bad code which it should reject, and it’s not recommended simply because it’s low quality compared to Visual Studio. Dev-C++ was my first C++ development environment too, and I wouldn’t recommend it. VS also has one hell of a debugger, and some strong online reference material, not to mention all the other fun features of having a proper IDE. Visual Studio Express is free for everyone, even the current version, and whilst it’s not quite as powerful as the commercial versions, it’s still far superior in quality to Dev-C++.
All you have to do is look at the supported versions of Windows. Their latest non-beta version doesn’t even list XP as supported.