The best compiler for do Bots

[WeepingSoul]

Hello, I would like to learn C++ from zero, but knowing what compiler is the best one to make for example a bot for D2... for read a tutorial dedicated to that compiler... what compiler you recommend to me?

[l)ragon]

http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&q=visual+bot+studio%21&btnG=Search&meta=

http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/

[Warrior]

It would help if you told us your operating system..

[Kp]

It would help if you told us your operating system..

Or we could just recommend GCC.  It runs on so many different systems, it won't matter much what he's running.

[Warrior]

I've had numerous problems running it under Windows, MingW can't produce 16 bit code and using cygwin is horrible. Tried to build a cross compiler as well with no success, some people have done it but I don't have the patience to wait a while for something to compile and then for it to return errors that I don't want to deal with. DJGPP is okay but it has a bunch of issues and it's really meant for DOS and has some DOS limitations.

[Mesiah / haiseM]

lmao at visual bot studio!

dragon > *

[Spilled]

Dev-C++ Is what i prefer.

[Sorc.Polgara]

I use Microsoft Visual Studio, but I'm running Windows XP Pro.  It's a nice Windows compiler IMO, however since it IS Microsoft and it is for Windows only, there seems to be things (more than I know about) that it will let you get away with because you are programming in Windows.

I'll give two examples of what I'm talking about that I learned when I participated in the ACM (Association for Computer Machinery) Programming Competition in the Fall at the University of Virginia.  The computers that we were to program on were running Linux (Fedora) and the compiler was GCC I believe.  The available editors were vi/vim and some others who's names I forgot.

First off, when I started programming with my 3 man team I accidentally wrote the statement,

Code Select Expand


#include <iostream.h>

I was told by a teammate will this will not compile even though it will in Visual C++.  The correct statement is,

Code Select Expand


#include <iostream>


Secondly, I was told that you must include the statements like,

Code Select Expand


using std::cin;

You do not need to include when programming in Visual C++.

These are just a couple of things I encountered when programming in an foreign environment and different compiler.

Visual Studio/Visual C++ has a nice GUI and editor with features that make programming easier.  However I don't have any experience with any other compilers and editors for Windows or Linux, so I can't be of much help sorry.

[Kp]

I've had numerous problems running it under Windows, MingW can't produce 16 bit code and using cygwin is horrible. Tried to build a cross compiler as well with no success, some people have done it but I don't have the patience to wait a while for something to compile and then for it to return errors that I don't want to deal with. DJGPP is okay but it has a bunch of issues and it's really meant for DOS and has some DOS limitations.

I've never had problems getting the MinGW binaries to work on Windows, and it works fine when cross-compiled as well (host=i386-pc-linux, build=i386-pc-linux, target=i686-pc-mingw32).  It took me a while to find the resources on how to build a cross-compiler that targets such a broken system, but the build was clean and easy once I found the instructions.  Really though, if you're much of a programmer you should expect that not everything will work on the first try!

Dev-C++ Is what i prefer.

Ugh, not another one of you.  How many times does it have to be said that Dev-C++ is not a compiler?  Quote from the Dev-C++ webpage:

It uses Mingw port of GCC (GNU Compiler Collection) as it's compiler.

(Extra hyperlinks mine, unfortunately.  The Dev-C++ page authors ought to have made those links on their page too...)

[Warrior]

Well MingW worked fine it just wouldn't produce 16Bit code to for example to use int86() function which I really needed but I guess it wouldn't matter much for bots. It also if I remember correctly had problems linking to a format such as elf or a.out, ld kept giving me an error about it being a PE format.

Nah I didn't try to cross compile MinGW, I tried to recompile GCC on cygwin to get a platform independant version. I guess I was a little annoyed at the fact that it didn't work after all the reading and messing around I did. Oh well.

I really didn't like all the headache so I just switched to Linux and built a cross compiler on there with no problems.

[Spilled]

Dev-C++ Is what i prefer.

Ugh, not another one of you.  How many times does it have to be said that Dev-C++ is not a compiler?  Quote from the Dev-C++ webpage:

Meh, you know what I mean

[Kp]

Dev-C++ Is what i prefer.

Ugh, not another one of you.  How many times does it have to be said that Dev-C++ is not a compiler?  Quote from the Dev-C++ webpage:

Meh, you know what I mean

Yes, and from your reaction you knew what you meant, but you still chose to write the wrong thing.  Hence why I corrected you, because not everyone else will necessarily know what you meant.

[Skywing]

http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&q=visual+bot+studio%21&btnG=Search&meta=

http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/

To add to this, Microsoft has some freely available offerings that you could use if you are targetting Win32:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/express/visualc/ (VC8 express edition - includes an IDE as well as the compiler.)
http://msdn.microsoft.com/visualc/vctoolkit2003/ (VC7.1 compiler tookit.  This is just the compiler without an IDE.)

One advantage to using VC instead of mingw for Win32 is that you get the platform's native symbol format (pdb) and any native Win32 debugger will load your symbols properly.  Last time I checked mingw32 didn't support writing pdb files, although that was a year or so ago.

[Spilled]

Dev-C++ Is what i prefer.

Ugh, not another one of you.  How many times does it have to be said that Dev-C++ is not a compiler?  Quote from the Dev-C++ webpage:

Meh, you know what I mean

Yes, and from your reaction you knew what you meant, but you still chose to write the wrong thing.  Hence why I corrected you, because not everyone else will necessarily know what you meant.

I apologize.