Question

I’m a longtime Visual Studio(from versions 6 to 2008) user that really like the editor and especially the debugger. Now I’m thinking of giving Linux a go, is there a IDE with similar, or better, capabilities out there?

I’m also interested in recommendations for GUI libraries, c++ or c#.

Answer 1

I moved from windows to linux 9 or so years ago after spending my initial career using Visual Studio.

The move was relatively easy as the build environment was first and foremost based on Makefiles. Up to this point I used scripts to create a visual studio project for the project each time there were changes.

At that time, the others in my team were using emacs. The learning curve is pretty steep when you come from something like VS, but IMHO it has been well worth the time I invested in it.

What sold me on emacs was the integration with gdb. Emacs has a mode specifically for gdb. Once this mode is started you can enable ‘gdb-many-windows’. This gives you a view very similar to that of any debuger environment. Also, one of the first things that I did after moving was to setup the VS key shortcuts. So even after all this time, I have the following in my .emacs file:

(global-set-key [f7] 'compile)             ;; asks for a command to run eg: make
(global-set-key [f4] 'next-error)          ;; show the next error
(global-set-key [S-f4] 'previous-error)    ;; show the previous error

(global-set-key [f5] 'gdb)                   ;; start the debugger   
(add-hook 'gud-mode-hook                     ;; allows changes to debugger mode
          '(lambda ()
             (define-key (current-local-map)
               [f10]
               'gud-next)                    ;; F10 does step over
             (define-key (current-local-map)
               [f11]
               'gud-step)                    ;; F11 does step into
             (define-key (current-local-map)
               [\S-f11]
               'gud-finish)                  ;; Shift+F11 finish function
             (define-key (current-local-map)
               [f5]
               'gud-cont)                    ;; F5 does continue.
             (gdb-many-windows t)))          ;; Set's up a debugger type view

If you haven’t used emacs before, then the first thing you need to know is that you type: Ctrl+X Ctrl+C to exit emacs.

If you do decide to give it a go, after loading it up use Ctrl-H then ‘t’. This starts the emacs tutorial which will give you the basics.

Of course, if you get stuck, then just review or ask a SO question tagged with emacs. This has become a really could source of information for emacs use. I only found out about gdb-many-windows this April from this question!