Simple C IDE

January 20, 2006 8:08 AM

I'm looking for a simple C IDE.

I like CodeWarrior, but it 's not in distribution anymore.

I've never developed in C before, but when I programmed in Java I used JCreator. I want a simple interface that requires minimal configuration and has basic syntax highlighting.

Just C, not C++.

posted by mr.dan to Computers & Internet (12 answers total)

How about Borland Turbo C 2.01?
posted by GuyZero at 8:11 AM on January 20, 2006

For Windows, there's the free Dev-C++, which works just fine with plain C as well.

Man, Borland Turbo C was amazing. If DOS is your thing, check it out.
posted by zsazsa at 8:31 AM on January 20, 2006

Response by poster: Thanks for the suggestions thus far, I'll try them out when I get a chance later tonight.

Does anyone know where I can get an actual copy of CodeWarrior 9 for Windows?
posted by mr.dan at 8:37 AM on January 20, 2006

Dev-C++ is the best free IDE for Windows out there, IMHO.
posted by cmonkey at 8:48 AM on January 20, 2006

I'm going to be a bit of a crank here and recommend emacs + ecb. Dev-C++ is nice, don't get me wrong, but (as a recent convert) I have to say that emacs kicks the ass out of its editor. Add in decent integrated debugging, and a good code browser (ecb), and you have a nice environment for working with C.

Alternatively, the Eclipse CDT project is phenomenal, if you want something more graphical.
posted by ChrisR at 8:53 AM on January 20, 2006

vim. it's quite a powerful editor, great for touch-typists, and it's got quite a smaller footprint than emacs or any other IDE you may find. if you're coming from windows, you can use gvim (all from the same developers) and explorer to access your files.
posted by moz at 8:59 AM on January 20, 2006

Eclipse CDT is a great editor, but ran like a dog on my Windows machine. It ran much better on Linux, it seemed, but most of the toolkits I use are for Windows, so...

I've been using Visual SlickEdit for a year and a half now, and I'm hooked. I believe it is similar in feature set to MS' Visual Studio as far as IDEs go.

Before I used SlickEdit I was just using gVim on Windows. I was mostly doing C development for Linux at the time, I like vi, and it got the job done. But I've since pulled all my projects into SlickEdit and I'd never go back. The reference searching and symbol searching features are worth every penny. You can even set it up to act like vi, so...
posted by kableh at 9:21 AM on January 20, 2006

Also, I use ellipses way too often, oops....
posted by kableh at 9:21 AM on January 20, 2006

I second Dev C++ -- incredibly full featured and very, very fast to load and close.
posted by ducksauce at 9:24 AM on January 20, 2006

I'd recommend Xcode. It'll come with your Mac... Oh wait you didn't specify what OS...
posted by schwa at 10:29 AM on January 20, 2006

Response by poster: Schwa, I apologize, I assumed that most would be familiar with JCreator as a Windows platform program.

I'm on Windows XP Tablet Edition.
posted by mr.dan at 10:51 AM on January 20, 2006

You might want to Google for RHIDE and DJGPP...I used those briefly when studying C++ at one point (mumble) years ago...
posted by alumshubby at 11:51 AM on January 20, 2006