Re: [Mingw-users] How to start C compiler? answered

[LRN <lr...@gm...>]

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On 28.11.2011 18:49, Solomon Eraut wrote:
> It seems like learning a programming language is going to take
thousands of hours, so every time there's another detour that could
take a thousand hours itself, and it wasn't something I CHOSE to
invest time in, I cut it short to an hour if I can.
As others have pointed out, you need an IDE, which will provide a
practically single-click (well, a few-click, maybe) solution for
software building. That's the name of the problem you have - software
building. There is a difference between learning a language, and
learning the tools involved in writing programs. IDE would be good for
you, since it either replaces some of the tools with its own
integrated-and-generally-easy-to-use self, or hides them from you,
running them by itself behind the scenes (which is the same thing,
from your point of view).
Also, tutorials for IDEs are simple to follow.

Give `Code::Blocks' a try, or maybe `DevC++'. Maybe Eclipse (not sure
if it can use MinGW toolset). Haven't been using IDEs for a while, so
can't really help you to choose.

You might also be able to find books or tutorials that explain not
only the C language, but also how to invoke compiler and linker, etc,
from command line. Sadly, i can't remember any.

Other problems you have:

Editor - you can use any text editor. I prefer Far Manager, but
absolutely any editor will do, if it is capable of working with
UTF-8-encoded files (that is, Notepad, Wordpad, and office
applications are generally unsuitable for this). Obviously, a text
editor with syntax highlighting is preferred, and IDE will provide
that, if you choose to use it. Some kind of "programmer's notepad"
would suffice.
Or you can use `vim' from command line, but that would be very hardcore.

Program appears for a second, then disappears - this is the normal
behaviour of a command-line application. I assume that you're running
it by double-clicking it in Windows explorer of some kind. Windows
sees that application is a command-line one (linker guessed that at
link stage, since you have main() instead of WinMain(), i think), and
creates a new console for it, which disappears once the application
finishes. Normally i would run the compiled application from the same
console i used to compile it (that would be MSys shell, bash, that
is), in which case the application will keep using that console
instead of creating a new one, and you'll see the output there, after
the application exits.

Other places to invoke gcc from - technically, you can invoke gcc from
normal Windows command prompt (that is, assuming that you've added
mingw/bin directory to PATH, otherwise Windows won't be able to find
gcc; MSys shell initialization script does the PATH magic for you,
which is why it just works there), and that would be fine for simple
"use gcc to compile an application that consists of one source file"
educational scenarios. However, if you start to write applications
that have more than one source file, you'll realize that you need a
way to automatically invoke gcc (and other tools), instead of doing it
yourself (because at best you'd have to invoke gcc once for every file).
Traditional way is to use makefiles and the `make' utility.
In Msys shell you can use `make', outside of Msys shell (in Windows
shell) you can use `mingw32-make'.
And that will work just fine, until your project gets bigger, and
you'll realize that writing makefiles is tedious, and that juggling
the many compiler and linker options is mind-nubbing. At which point
you have a few options:
1) Use IDE, because IDE often allows you to not to use makefiles.
2) Use non-make building tools (`scons', `CMake', `ant', and so on)
3) Use autotools, which is the traditional *nix way. And for autotools
you need MSys, because autotools require *nix shell (such as bash).
Considering the fact that LOTS of free/opensource programs, especially
the ones originating from *nix, use autotools, it means that compiling
them absolutely requires MSys shell. Which is kinda the point i've
been trying to make in this paragraph. So to answer your question:
yes, you can use gcc outside of MSys shell, as long as you're using
only [simple/pre-made] makefiles or non-make building tools, which do
not require MSys shell.

As i have said, learning the tools has little to do with programming.

For the record, i've learned programming using IDEs (for Basic,
Pascal, and C), and only after that i've switched to using
command-line tools, like `gcc', `make', autotools and such.

Oh, and sending directly to the list is fine, that is exactly how it
is supposed to work.
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