pk stuff

I’m always on the prowl for new, better tools, especially for C++ development under Linux. While I’ve used vi for decades, my years spent with Visual Studio have left me wanting more.

I’ve tried several commercial and open source C++ IDEs on Linux, from Borland’s C++Builder to KDevelop and of course Eclipse/CDT and found all less than ideal, either because they were too cumbersome, too general or too awkward. Vi and emacs were stiil my editors of choice.

Then one day I stumbled across Code::Blocks and was immediately impressed. Here was a nice, lightweight IDE specifically targeting C++, with good support for existing makefile projects, mutliple compilers and platforms. I used it regularly for about a year until one day I tried browsing Google’s V8 and failed miserably. That’s when I realized Code::Blocks doesn’t support ctags and its own “tag” engine is broken. Googling turned up references to a C::B search plugin but I couldn’t find any code – guess the project stalled.

In fact the project hadn’t stalled but had instead morphed into a complete C++ IDE: codelite. It’s amazing what Eran and his crew have been able to accomplish. Most of the functionality of Code::Blocks is there plus superb search tools.

If you’re developing in C++ you owe yourself the favor of checking it out:

https://codelite.org