Eclipse for Java and C++?

Joneser

Hi, im a 3rd year comp sci student and have been programming in java since first year, now we are doing C++ but other modules still need java. Is there a way to use one version of Eclipse for both languages because I was told i needed to get rid of the java version for the c++ one to work properly? Thanks

Anima

Nope thats not true. You can have both running side by side if you like. Having said that, I probably wouldn't use Eclipse for C/C++ stuff. I have done before but its not fantastic. If you're a student you can get the proper version of Visual Studio off Dreamspark.com for free.

Joneser

Thanks for that, ill check out that website and test the software you recommended but im pretty sure the lecturer wants us to use Eclipse for it...sigh

Donald-Duck

Anima wrote: »

Nope thats not true. You can have both running side by side if you like. Having said that, I probably wouldn't use Eclipse for C/C++ stuff. I have done before but its not fantastic. If you're a student you can get the proper version of Visual Studio off Dreamspark.com for free.

I imagine he will have to use eclipse because the lecturer will want all students running the same compiler.

adm

I have three versions of eclipse - a folder for each - running java C++ and php and have no issues.

Sparks

Gah. Teaching students programming with eclipse or visual studio or any other GUI IDE. It's just wrong. Basic text editor and basic commandline compiler, and go learn to do it the hard way, at least once, or you're never going to understand things properly.

This is one of the reasons we have so many damn cargo cult programmers out there.

Atomic Pineapple

Sparks wrote: »

Gah. Teaching students programming with eclipse or visual studio or any other GUI IDE. It's just wrong. Basic text editor and basic commandline compiler, and go learn to do it the hard way, at least once, or you're never going to understand things properly.

This is one of the reasons we have so many damn cargo cult programmers out there.

Whats a cargo cult programmer?

I've just graduated from a 4 year honors degree in software development and we done it that way, we used textpad to get used to programming for ages before moving on to jdeveloper and eclipse for the bigger projects and I have to agree with you I found learning how to do it in textpad extremely beneficial

Sparks

draffodx wrote: »

Whats a cargo cult programmer?

Someone who codes without really knowing why they code something in a particular way; more generally, someone who programmes without really understanding what the code is doing. (Look up "cargo cults" from the pacific theatre of WW2).

The number of people I've run into in the last few years who had no idea what was going on in their code at any deeper level - or who had no idea how that "Compile" button worked - has been scary.

I've just graduated from a 4 year honors degree in software development and we done it that way, we used textpad to get used to programming for ages before moving on to jdeveloper and eclipse for the bigger projects and I have to agree with you I found learning how to do it in textpad extremely beneficial

Yup. JDeveloper, Eclipse, Visual Studio, all the funky tools we use to get things done fast are utterly counter-productive until someone has seen things done properly first, behind the scenes. Once you've seen and understood how it works back there, then the speedup from tools like that becomes a good thing.

NeverSayDie

Roughly speaking, a cargo cult programmer is someone who writes code without much understanding of what they're doing - to the point where they include pointless code, or re-use the same code for various not necessarily relevant situations.

I haven't come across too many of them myself fortunately. My bad experiences there have tended to be with DBAs, sys admins, web designers and other folks who are used to writing code (or its equivalent) a standalone page or so at a time, getting shoved into developing software instead of scripts. Tends to end in grief.

Re IDEs, can go too far in the opposite direction too - a graduate who's never used modern development tools is at a bit of a disadvantage, though not as much as the other case. Likewise, instead of cargo-cult types, you can end up with folks who think they have to implement everything from scratch, or turn up their noses at third party libraries/frameworks - that's pretty damaging too, the more so because they think they know what they're doing.

Sparks

There's definitely room to teach the use of the tools NSD, I'm not saying there isn't - just that, well, you should learn how to do what the tools do before you learn to use the tools. If that makes sense.

Think of it as learning to drive with a manual gearbox before learning to drive with an automatic one.


(And I've run into Not-Invented-Here syndrome from everyone, regardless of training or toolset...)

Joneser

I should have clarified that for all of first year we just used notepad and the command line to make our code, only started using eclipse in second year

pauldiv

Netbeans is simple enough and can handle Java and C++

Here are testomonials from developers who use it: http://www.netbeans.org/features/ide/testimonials.html

I like Netbeans myself and always have done but I learned using a text editor first. It's the best way to learn


For teaching, colleges often hit first year students with IDE's like Visual Studio and Eclipse. This is madness because the tools are too intimidating and take your mind off the real task of programming