Is it worth learning Eclipse for C++ development

Question

As far as I know it is hard to learn using Eclipse from scratch. But I will get such benefits as fast source code browsing, call graphs, static code analysis. What other benefits will I get from using Eclipse for C++ (CDT)?

Answer 1

It can help make cross-platform development (for Windows and Linux) a lot easier.

Answer 2

I learned Eclipse for C++. It is flexible and offers many features. I no longer use it for C++.

What I found is that CDT feels like an "add on" rather than an intrinsically supported environment. Perhaps because it is an add on. Eclipse is written in and primarily supports Java development.

It was also rather buggy at the time but that was two years ago. I think today's CDT is probably more refined.

Lastly, it took a long time to start and some editing operations were rather slow. I was able to find a vi plugin for it, but it wasn't free and wasn't a perfect emulation.

Today I use a commercial editor that is fast and doesn't feel like it is out of its element. I would encourage you to try Eclipse and see for yourself if it meets your needs.

Answer 3

If you don't want the giant size and lethargic performance of Eclipse, try Code::Blocks, which is a cross-platform C++ IDE actually written in C++. They have just released a spanking new version (10.05).

Answer 4

I rarely use an IDE. It is much easier and faster to use a good text editor (VEDIT) and then use make for building. Of course, you can call compilers, make, debugger etc. directly from VEDIT, then browse errors etc.

I have tried Eclipse a few times. The first thing I noticed is that it is really heavy. Cold start takes about 2 minutes on my machine, and subsequent starts around 20 to 30 seconds. (In comparison, with VEDIT, cold start is 1.5 seconds and any subsequent starts about 0.5 seconds.) The UI of Eclipse has lots of unnecessary clutter on screen, so there is not so much room for the code being edited. Eclipse can not edit files larger than a few megabytes, so you need another editor for editing large log files, memory dumps etc. anyway.

A good programmers editor does have fast source code browsing, function lists, call graphs etc, you do not need an IDE for that. The tools for static analysis (such as Lint, Klockworks etc.) are separate tools anyway, but you can call them from a text editor just as well as from IDE. Text editor can be integrated to version control, too (but you may need to do some configuration work yourself).

The advantage of a general purpose text editor is that you can use the same tool for all your text editing, so you will learn to use it effectively.

What is special about IDE is that it is usually more tightly coupled to some specific language. For example, it may contain full on-line help and code completion for the language library, API functions etc. Those may be useful to someone.

Answer 5

I used Eclipse with C++ only for a short time, and rather I could use Eclipse with Java for some months. Now that I'm not using it, I feel that some important features are missing. Eclipse is pretty heavy, but has some great features that I can't find easily somewhere else.

I can live without code analysis and project management (for small projects), but some features about source code navigation and refactoring are really unique and I really miss them.

IMHO, Eclipse is worth learning, even if it won't become your default IDE.

Answer 6

Let me be very presumptuous for a moment and tell you what you really want.

You do not want to learn an IDE.

What you want is an easy and efficient tool, that will seamlessly assist you in writing c++ code. C++ is already difficult enough, ideally you should concentrate on it and forget about the IDE.

My advice. Let VI and Emacs to the dinosaurs. If you're on windows go for Visual Studio (the Express edition is freely available for personal use), otherwise Eclipse and Code::Blocks are good choices.