Question

I’m looking for a good IDE for C++ that has most or all of the following properties (well, the first 4 or 5 ones are mandatory):

1. cross-platform (at least Mac, Linux)

2. of course, syntax highlighting and other basic coding editor functionality

   • reasonably responsive GUI, not too sluggish on mid-size (say, 100 files) projects (both my Linux and Mac computers are 5 years old)

   • code completion

   • integration with gdb

   • SVN integration would be nice too

   • refactoring (rename a variable semi-automatically throughout the codebase, etc.)

   • can display class hierarchy

   • can add hypertext-style links to the code (so you can click on a function/class name and it brings you to the declaration),

   • can show code parts that (potentially) call my function (I know that’s hard to do for C++ so I added the potentially)

So far, I’ve been using Emacs for everything, but I think advanced features that give me more overview and search capabilities like the last three would be nice. I’m tired of just using grep and find on my codebase.

Basically, I want most of the things for C++ development that Java IDEs usually do.

I see Netbeans can be used for C++, as well as Eclipse. I think they would fit my requirements. Has anyone actually used them for daily coding? What are the differences? What are your experiences? Code::Blocks is more lightweight and doesn’t do many of the things listed above, right?

Note: I don’t need a GUI builder.

Update: With the bullet point 10 I mean that I can give it a function name (e.g. Foo::setValue), and it shows me all occurrences where this particular function (and not other functions of the same name, like Bar::setValue) is called in my codebase.

Answer 1

Code::Blocks does the first 5 and it’s also got class method browsing (though not a heirarchy display). It’s a much more lightweight solition thaen Eclipse or NetBeans, but if you like the minimalist approach it’s pretty good.

To summarise CB versus your requirements:

1. Yes
2. Yes
3. Yes
4. Yes
5. Yes
6. No – but you can add it easily
7. No
8. No, but similar functionality
9. No
10. Can go from definition to decl and vice versa, but no callers list

As all the solutions you mention are free, you could always try them all and then make a decision on which one to stick with. That’s what I did.