Optimal Eclipse CDT (C++) experience in March of 2010

Question

I am a student who will be using C++ next quarter. I really enjoyed using the Galileo release of Eclipse with Java and I would like to continue using Eclipse for for C++ development.

I am now experimenting with C++ development on Eclipse. I am running Eclipse 3.5 SR2 with CDT 6.02. My operating system is Windows 7 and I have installed MinGW-5.1.6. Version 6.3 of GDB is installed.

I have it compiling and stepping through code. However, I have the suspicion that I'm just crawling along and have yet to "shift the car out of first gear". I've spent about a week poking around on the Web to learn what constitutes and "optimal" C++ Eclipse experience. In particular, I'm interested in round-tripping with UML and unit testing.

My exploration of the Web became an archeological dig. I turned up how-to articles from 2003, alternative MinGW distros, references to plugins, dead-links, more references to plugins, passionate discussions on gdb bugs, and more references to plugins.

I no longer have any idea what might constitute an optimal C++ Eclipse environment. Would members of the community like to weigh-in on what they consider to be the current optimal experience for C++ development using Eclipse?

Answer 1

Seeing as none of the C++ gods here on SO have weighed in...

My last experience with CDT was about 1 year ago. I too love eclipse for Java, and while CDT "did the job", I didn't feel like it did it any better than Code::Blocks which I used for cross platform development.

Eclipse does have access to UMLet which is my favorite UML tool as it uses a very simple scripting language instead of the 'mouse-click-drag-double-click-type' hell that most UML applications turn out to be. However, UMLet can also be used as a standalone application which makes tucking it into eclipse accomplish little more than wasting screen real-estate.

In the end, I really don't think you are going to find many professionals developing in CDT.

On the linux side you are going to find developers using what they wish to use (Anjuta, Code::Blocks, Dev-C++, kdeveloper, EMACS, vim, etc.)

On the Windows side you'll find Visual Studio overwhelmingly followed by the IDE's above that happen to be cross platform.

In the end, if I HAD to develop in Eclipse; I would use CDT, UMLet, and Subclipse. After having done that I would probably long for my TortoiseSVN, Visual Studio, Code::Blocks, and UMLet standalone.

As far as any automated unit testing goes? Don't know, write my tests by hand. Hope that helps.

Answer 2

CDT 7.0 (out now in June) will have a preview of Codan, a static analysis framework for C/C++. It will highlight logic errors for you in "realtime", i.e. without having to wait for compilation. (It doesn't have very many checkers at the moment, but the number is growing, and you can also implement checkers of your own.)

CDT 7.0 also features a new debugger contributed by Nokia (called "EDC"), which allows debugging without relying on 3rd party tools such as gdb. This will also allow debugging of Visual Studio binaries, something which previously has been impossible.

The "Open Type" and "Open Resource" commands of CDT (and JDT also, BTW) is something I always miss when I have to do stuff in Visual Studio. Being able to locate any type by incrementally typing a part of its name is very practical, and Visual Studio has nothing close to it.

Integration with unit-testing is still missing, though. Not sure why that hasn't caught on.