i recently came across a "new" IDE for C/C++ development. well, is "Qt Creator" really new? not exaclty, so lets call it the underdog of IDEs then.
but because of my dissatisfaction with everything apart from visual studio i've so far used, i immediatly tried out the new 1.2.1 version of Qt Creator.
and boy, i am amazed! this is really a great IDE for developing C++ applications. The name is a bit irritating because it implies its purpose is to create QT apps.
well, maybe it is, but its also very good for "normal" apps. till now i have used eclipse. i hate it but i sticked to it because of its good parser and syntax highlighting. plus the debugger is capable of showing you the base classes members of your instances and resolves the type. this made it the best IDE i knew so far. but now i am more and more working with qt creator. so here a small comparison between qt creator and eclipse of the cons for me of both IDEs
Qt Creator vs Eclipse CDT
Qt Creator Pro's
*transparent
*fast
*philosophy resembles a bit to the one of visual studio (projects/searching)
*add your doxygen documentation to the IDE for reference
*the best damn debugger there is usable under linux c/c++!!!
Eclipse CDT Pro's
*code on hover
*best syntax highlighting so far
qt creator is very transparent in what it does. it took me a long while to figure out how i could use my custom scons apps&libs and the somewhat obscure file structure that is used in our projects with eclipse. it is quite lightweight and not that bloated like eclipse, there are only a few config files which are used to set all up.
qt creator is very fast in comparison to the devillish slow eclipse. building, starting the debugger, changing the views, searching. everything SEEMS fast. eclipse does not seem fast. eclipse is coded in java, qt creator isnt. plus qt creator is only for c++. these will be two of the major reasons for this.
i hate the inline search in eclipse. and i also dont like the "normal" search with its results window. ok, thats taste but i like it more the way visual studio and also qt creator does present the search.
another thing is the "project" approach in qt creator. i find the philosophy behind the eclipse workspaces and then included subprojects very confusing, even stupid. i dont get the benefits. and in eclipse, where is a setting stored? in the workspace or in project? and can i export it, and how can i export it to use it somewhere else?
in qt creator the projects of not-"automaked" projects have 3 relevant files. a project has some resemblance to a visual studio project.
3 files, manually editable. it is plain dead simple. plus, getting custom make projects work in IDEs is always problematic, thats not only eclipse. but it wasnt that difficult with qt creator.
want to include your doxygen help somehow in eclipse CDT? forget it. i even searched eclipses bugzilla mailing list. to no avail.
yes, it shall be possible in other IDEs like code::blocks ( i think it was codeblocks), but i didnt succeed to get it working. with qt creator? after 2 hours i had everything set up. now, i can press F1 when i am over myClassInstance->MyMethod() and instantly a window with the doxygen help will popup. aaah. how nice. this even beats visual c++.
but now comes the best part:
the qt creator debugger!
i always missed the top notch visual studio debugger that microsoft ships with their product.
i dont know about VS2003 debugger for c/c++ but from VS2005 onward the ms debugger definetly beats everything out there i could get running on ubuntu.
strongly worded if we look at debugging c/c++, the linux platform is 4 years behind microsoft.... until now. now there is qt creator.
this baby has built in STL debugging support. heaven on earth! you even can change the STL variables value for simple types!
if you are capable of, you can even write your own helper functions for using it with qt creator to visualize your data types in your own preferred way. this can be done via adding the appropriate c++ code to your
qtsdk-2009.03/qtc-debugging-helper directory. there you find a gdbmacros.cpp file.
of course qt creator is not perfect. syntax highlighting is not as good as in eclipse. nonetheless its still better than what visual studio users are used to. another problem is with my ubuntu (coming with gnome) there are some visual quirks. then there are also problems with the debugger. on certain code it may crash, like when he tries to resolve an unititialized STL iterator.
despite small issues, i just can highly recommend to try out this IDE. especially if you come from windows. it is also an IDE where you have already a WYSIWYG editor included for building GUI apps, also something you wont find often. i havent really tested it though because i tend to write C# apps if i need GUI or use exising wxWidget apps but it looks&feels professional.
so give it a try!
but because of my dissatisfaction with everything apart from visual studio i've so far used, i immediatly tried out the new 1.2.1 version of Qt Creator.
and boy, i am amazed! this is really a great IDE for developing C++ applications. The name is a bit irritating because it implies its purpose is to create QT apps.
well, maybe it is, but its also very good for "normal" apps. till now i have used eclipse. i hate it but i sticked to it because of its good parser and syntax highlighting. plus the debugger is capable of showing you the base classes members of your instances and resolves the type. this made it the best IDE i knew so far. but now i am more and more working with qt creator. so here a small comparison between qt creator and eclipse of the cons for me of both IDEs
Qt Creator vs Eclipse CDT
Qt Creator Pro's
*transparent
*fast
*philosophy resembles a bit to the one of visual studio (projects/searching)
*add your doxygen documentation to the IDE for reference
*the best damn debugger there is usable under linux c/c++!!!
Eclipse CDT Pro's
*code on hover
*best syntax highlighting so far
qt creator is very transparent in what it does. it took me a long while to figure out how i could use my custom scons apps&libs and the somewhat obscure file structure that is used in our projects with eclipse. it is quite lightweight and not that bloated like eclipse, there are only a few config files which are used to set all up.
qt creator is very fast in comparison to the devillish slow eclipse. building, starting the debugger, changing the views, searching. everything SEEMS fast. eclipse does not seem fast. eclipse is coded in java, qt creator isnt. plus qt creator is only for c++. these will be two of the major reasons for this.
i hate the inline search in eclipse. and i also dont like the "normal" search with its results window. ok, thats taste but i like it more the way visual studio and also qt creator does present the search.
another thing is the "project" approach in qt creator. i find the philosophy behind the eclipse workspaces and then included subprojects very confusing, even stupid. i dont get the benefits. and in eclipse, where is a setting stored? in the workspace or in project? and can i export it, and how can i export it to use it somewhere else?
in qt creator the projects of not-"automaked" projects have 3 relevant files. a project has some resemblance to a visual studio project.
3 files, manually editable. it is plain dead simple. plus, getting custom make projects work in IDEs is always problematic, thats not only eclipse. but it wasnt that difficult with qt creator.
want to include your doxygen help somehow in eclipse CDT? forget it. i even searched eclipses bugzilla mailing list. to no avail.
yes, it shall be possible in other IDEs like code::blocks ( i think it was codeblocks), but i didnt succeed to get it working. with qt creator? after 2 hours i had everything set up. now, i can press F1 when i am over myClassInstance->MyMethod() and instantly a window with the doxygen help will popup. aaah. how nice. this even beats visual c++.
but now comes the best part:
the qt creator debugger!
i always missed the top notch visual studio debugger that microsoft ships with their product.
i dont know about VS2003 debugger for c/c++ but from VS2005 onward the ms debugger definetly beats everything out there i could get running on ubuntu.
strongly worded if we look at debugging c/c++, the linux platform is 4 years behind microsoft.... until now. now there is qt creator.
this baby has built in STL debugging support. heaven on earth! you even can change the STL variables value for simple types!
if you are capable of, you can even write your own helper functions for using it with qt creator to visualize your data types in your own preferred way. this can be done via adding the appropriate c++ code to your
qtsdk-2009.03/qtc-debugging-helper directory. there you find a gdbmacros.cpp file.
of course qt creator is not perfect. syntax highlighting is not as good as in eclipse. nonetheless its still better than what visual studio users are used to. another problem is with my ubuntu (coming with gnome) there are some visual quirks. then there are also problems with the debugger. on certain code it may crash, like when he tries to resolve an unititialized STL iterator.
despite small issues, i just can highly recommend to try out this IDE. especially if you come from windows. it is also an IDE where you have already a WYSIWYG editor included for building GUI apps, also something you wont find often. i havent really tested it though because i tend to write C# apps if i need GUI or use exising wxWidget apps but it looks&feels professional.
so give it a try!
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