From: rbs{at}snippets.org
To: c_echo{at}yahoogroups.com

On Thu, 24 Jul 2003, andrew clarke wrote:

> > For those still using DJGPP, I would recommend conversion to MingW32
> > http://www.nanotech.wisc.edu/~khan/software/gnu-win32/>. It's a much
> > more useful Win32 port, although DJGPP is still OK for DOS work. Lots
> > of stuff that only kinda sorta works in DJGPP works splendidly in
> > MingW32.
>
> That page is four years old...  These days Cygwin is "it" if
you want to
> use GNU C/++ for Windows development.  http://www.cygwin.com/

I have a Cygwin installation on my machine here. My only problem with
CygWin is that it's a self contained environment that happens to live on a
Win32 machine. MingW32 compiles native W32 .exe's without the need for any
of the supporting package that CygWin has. Under the hood, they're all
just gcc/g++ ports, so I made my choice based on adaptation to the native
environment. I had really good success with it when I was at Motorola/
Metrowerks writing code that compiled and ran identically under Win32 and
Solaris 7. I've reused some of the same code without modification on the
SNIPPETS server (Debian Linux).

> > In the new SNIPPETS, the only compilers I use for compatibility
> > testing on PC's are MingW32 and the Digital Mars compiler. The
> > rationale is simple: MingW32 is an excellent gcc/g++ port, and DMC is
> > almost 100% compatible with MS(V)C/C++, and both are free!
>
> OpenWatcom, and the free Win32 version of Borland C++ 5.5 is also worth
> a look.  I prefer Borland for compilation speed, and probably also out
> many years of habitual use of Borland C++ 3.1...  :-)

Digital Mars is Walter Bright's old Symantec C/C++ compiler (Walter
regained the rights to publish it after Symantec abandoned the C/C++
market) which is every bit as fast as Borland (and faster than Watcom) and
has the advantage of being much more MS compatible. I restrict myself to
those two because they represent 90+% of the market. I had a really
unpleasant experience a short while ago with Borland's commercial C++
Builder, so I avoid anything Borland simply out of resentment for that
experience. Watcom is/was a good compiler, but is less MS compatible than
DMC.

And then there's the "habitual" thing... I've been using Walter's
compilers ever since Datalight C, on through the Zortech and Symantec
years, so choosing it as my MC(V)C/C++ compatible free compiler of choice
was a no-brainer for me. YMMV...

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