Mail Archives: djgpp/1998/02/18/00:49:14
Hi, Luis Carlos!
You ask about a C/C++ development environment to use to develop Windows apps.
Unfortunately, the DJGPP tools can't be used for it, since they're targeted
for MS-DOS.
There is an adaptation of DJGPP for Windows, called, RSXNTDJ, that can be found
in the v2tk subdirectory DJGPP in Simtelnet tree; for instance,
ftp://ftp.simtel.net/pub/simtelnet/gnu/djgpp/v2tk/rsxdj131.zip
In Brazil it can also be found at Simtelnet's tree in Unicamp:
ftp://ftp.unicamp.br/pub/simtelnet/gnu/djgpp/v2tk/rsxdj131.zip
If you want a C only compiler, there's also LCC, which can be downloaded at:
http://www.remcomp.com/lcc-win32/
It has also an unofficial homepage, at
http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Heights/9069/index.html
And there's an adaptation of GNU software to Windows that emulates Un*x under
Win32 (Win95/NT). It is called Cygnus GNU-Win32, a. k. a. Cygwin or CygWin32,
at
http://www.cygnus.com/misc/gnu-win32
And as an offspring to Cygnus GNU-Win32, there's also MinGWin, a minimalist
Cygwin, that means it doesn't need a Un*x emulation layer. It can be
downloaded at
http://www.fu.is.saga-u.ac.jp/~colin
or
http://www.geocities.com/Tokyo/Towers/6162
If you want a suggestion of what software development environment to download
and install, all i can say is that i use Cygnus GNU-Win32 (a. k. a. CygWin)
for my Win32 programming. I use it mainly to write software portable to Un*x,
and CygWin sure has some portability to offer. Unfortunately it is still not
as mature as DJGPP.
I don't know whether RSXNT, DJGPP's offpring, is as mature as its parent; it
would very interesting to hear the opinion of its users.
Concerning offsprings, as MinGWin32 doesn't try to emulate Un*x it sure has a
better relationship with MS-Windows. As a counterpoint, though, it has fewer
Un*x utilities ported using it.
LCC seems to be an interesting product, that comes complete with an IDE, and
has a nice and efficient C compiler. C, not C++.
The Win32 API, used to program Windows apps is a terrible thing to use. So,
people prefer not to use it directly; everybody prefer a good library that
encapsulate Win32 API's complexity. The preferred type of library nowadays is
the OOP (Object Oriented Programming) libraries that seem to be successful in
making Win32 more amenable to program.
Unfortunately, C isn't very well suited for OOP. So people use C++ for medium
to large sized MS-Windows applications.
Here are two public domain OOP libraries that allow you to program the Win32
API in a more comfortable way:
- wxWindows (http://web.ukonline.co.uk/julian.smart/wxwin/) is probably the
most complete GUI library available in public domain; it already adapted for
CygWin, but not for the other public domain compilers here mentioned; however
wxWindows has minor problems with CygWin;
- V (http://www.objectcentral.com/) is a library not intended for professional
use but for learning OOP and GUI programming. And it seems to be very good at
it.
Both wxWindows and V offer some form of portability between Un*x GUIs and
MS-Windows.
Regards,
++Hilton
P.S.: I've tried to write in English as this is the language used in this
newsgroup. If you need further information, please email me privately, and
we'll try together to find that info.
-------------------
Hilton Fernandes
email: hgfernan AT usp DOT br
www: http://www.lsi.usp.br/~hilton.html (inactive)
M. Sc. Student of Parallel Distributed Applications
at Escola Politecnica (Polytechnic School)
University of S. Paulo - Brazil
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