Newborn developers often have a limited understanding of the tools available to make working with code easier, increase efficiency, and protect against many mistakes. These tools are not a silver bullet for the difficulties the language may present, but they can significantly smooth out the rough edges. The following is a list of common and popular tools recognized by developers around the world, but it is only a small portion of what is available. Over time, you will become more familiar with these tools and discover new ones that suit your needs.
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▶️ Visual Studio CodeSite: https://code.visualstudio.com/
Price: free
A powerful and efficient editor for text files and source code is available. It has a rich library of extensions that enables customization for personal preferences. It can also be configured to work with source code, allowing you to compile, run, and debug your code with ease. Additionally, it has a powerful search engine for files and folders, making it easier to search, read, and work with large projects.
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▶️ Notepad++Site: https://notepad-plus-plus.org/
Price: free
A lightweight editor for text files and source code, it supports syntax highlighting for common programming languages. Compared to Visual Studio Code, it is more convenient for quickly opening and viewing files and due to its lightweight design, it is comfortable to work with a large number of text files.
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▶️ Microsoft Visual Studio IDESite: https://visualstudio.microsoft.com
Price: Community Edition is free
An integrated development environment (IDE) from Microsoft, providing a comprehensive set of tools including a code editor, compiler, debugger, and profiler, for various programming languages and cross-platform development. A great option for beginners, as its modern interface is user-friendly and requires minimal customization out of the box.
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▶️ Qt Creator IDESite: https://www.qt.io/product/development-tools
Price: free for open source projects (more details: Qt Open Source)
Initially, Qt Creator was positioned as an IDE for developing graphical interfaces for C++ applications. Over time, the framework has acquired numerous capabilities and evolved into a comprehensive ecosystem for cross-platform development. It offers a vast library of primitives for various needs such as networking, graphical interface, database work, and handling popular formats like images and text files. Today, Qt Creator serves as a competitor to Visual Studio and is particularly popular among developers creating applications for various Linux distributions.
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▶️ Eclipse IDESite: https://www.eclipse.org/downloads/packages
Price: free
Eclipse is a highly capable multi-platform development environment, but it is also quite heavy. One of the key features of Eclipse is its modularity. The philosophy of Eclipse is that any developer can modify the development environment to fit their needs by connecting additional extensions. It is used as a foundation by some compiler developers for specialized OS or microcontrollers, such as the QNX real-time OS, Red-Hat Linux and more.
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▶️ JetBrains Clion IDESite: https://www.jetbrains.com/clion
Price: free for students and teachers
Powerful multi-platform IDE from JetBrains. Like other IDEs, it provides a comprehensive set of tools for comfortable software development. It is convenient for cross-platform development in both C and C++.
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▶️ JetBrains ReSharper C++Site: https://www.jetbrains.com/resharper-cpp
Price: free for students and teachers
An extension for Microsoft Visual Studio, it adds advanced features for working with source code such as extended code highlighting and hints, building dependency diagrams between projects, recommendations for correcting common errors in code, enhanced information during debugging, improved searching and navigating within projects, etc. It competes with Visual Assist.
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▶️ Visual AssistSite: https://www.wholetomato.com
An extension for Microsoft Visual Studio that provides additional features for working with source code, such as enhanced code highlighting and hints, increased information during debugging and coding, advanced search capabilities, and improved project navigation. It competes with JetBrains ReSharper.
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▶️ IncredibuildSite: https://www.incredibuild.com
Price: have to contact incredibuild team to find the price
Application/extension for distributed compilation of projects, which unites all developer workstations into a single network, providing the possibility of using dozens of machines to assemble and compile the source code. This speeds up the build process for large projects.
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▶️ CmakeSite: https://cmake.org
A cross-platform automation system for building an application from source code, which generates the necessary artifacts for subsequent assembly on the target platform. It is currently considered the standard tool for building various libraries when supplied as source.
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▶️ ConanSite: https://conan.io
Price: free
A package manager and dependency manager for organizing C++ libraries and frameworks. It supports work on various platforms such as Windows and Linux, and has integration with tools such as CMake and Visual Studio.
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▶️ NinjaSite: https://ninja-build.org
Price: free
Project build manager for C and C++ applications. The main advantage of this manager is quick project assembly. It supports cross-platform development and works with all popular compilers.
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▶️ PVS StudioSite: https://pvs-studio.com
Price: 30 days trial
Cross-platform (Windows, Linux, MacOS) static code analyzer by PVS-Studio. The main aim of the analyzer is to analyze the source code for various errors that may go undetected by compilers or during code review. It helps reduce the number of errors related to language syntax and pitfalls.
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▶️ Cpp CheckSite: https://cppcheck.sourceforge.io
Price: free
A free code analyzer that helps you catch common errors in your source code that might be missed by the compiler or during code review. It is cross-platform and supports popular Linux distributions and Windows.
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▶️ ValgrindSite: https://www.valgrind.org
Price: free
A set of tools that can help you investigate various problems while the application is running, such as memory leaks and performance profiling. It is compatible with multiple Linux distributions.
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▶️ SmartGitSite: https://www.syntevo.com/smartgit/
Price: free for open source projects
A complete, cross-platform tool for working with Git repositories. Out of the box, it provides the following features: receiving and sending changes to the repository, viewing the history of changes, a text editor for resolving conflicts, etc. Supports integration with all popular repositories like GitHub, BitBucket, GitLab, etc.
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▶️ Atlassian SourceTreeSite: https://www.sourcetreeapp.com/
Price: free
A great free alternative for working with Git using a GUI. It has the same functionality as SmartGit, with the exception of the absence of its own editor for conflict resolution. However, this can be easily fixed by integrating Visual Studio Code or any other editor that can compare files. In all other respects, it completely duplicates the functionality of SmartGit: it is cross-platform and supports integration with popular repositories such as GitHub, BitBucket, GitLab, etc.
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▶️ Git KrakenSite: https://www.gitkraken.com/
Price: free for open source projects
A cross-platform and highly efficient client for Windows, Linux, and MacOS. It supports integration with GitHub, Bitbucket, and Gitlab, and has all the necessary functionality for everyday work, such as viewing the change history, submitting and receiving changes, switching between branches, and a built-in conflict resolution editor.