From: hgfernan AT usp DOT br Message-Id: <9802180547.AA28544@spider.uspnet.usp.br> Comments: Authenticated sender is To: "LUIS CARLOS PAGLIARI" , "DJGPP mailing list" Date: Wed, 18 Feb 1998 03:38:50 +0000 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT Subject: Re: c compiler for windows Cc: "Fernandes, Hilton" In-Reply-To: <199802150505.AAA07261@delorie.com> Precedence: bulk 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