Compiling without setting up a project in NetBeans or Visual Studio

Question

Hi,

In short: is there a way to compile and run single file in NetBeans or Visual Studio without having to setup and tinker with projects?

I'm currently using code::blocks as my IDE. It's fast and very simple: perfect for my needs as a begginner.

I wanted to dive a little deeper and try out a more advanced IDE such as NetBeans or Visual Studio. It appears I have to mess with projects and have a setup that seems overkill for having to compile and run one very simple .c/.cpp source file that contains less than 50-100 lines of code etc.

Is there a way around this?

Answer 1

You always have to setup a project - this is where information about libraries etc is found by the IDE, so it cannot do without. If you just have one file, and not a lot of dependencies you could just stick with a plain editor. Once you want auto completion of functions, refactoring, etc... you have to store the information about what is relevant somewhere, and the some sort of 'project' will become necessary.