Eclipse CDT

Eclipse CDT (C/C++ Development Tooling) is a fully functional IDE that is available on Windows, Linux, and MacOS. The main draw to this program is once you learn the IDE you can use it on any (common) architecture. The second is that it is free.  

helloworld.png

Eclipse CDT is a wonderful source code editor, but you still need a compiler and debugger. On Linux this is easy since the package manager sorts this out for you. Windows, it is tricker.

If you have already installed "Eclipse for Java Developers" or other Eclipse packages, you could install the CDT plug-in as follows: Launch Eclipse ⇒ Help ⇒ Install New Software ⇒ In "Work with" field, pull down the drop-down menu and select "Kepler - http://download.eclipse.org/releases/kepler" (or juno for Eclipse 4.2; or helios for Eclipse 3.7). In "Name" box, expand "Programming Language" node ⇒ Check "C/C++ Development Tools" ⇒ "Next" ⇒ ... ⇒ "Finish".

If you have not install any Eclipse package, you could download "Eclipse IDE for C/C++ Developers" from http://www.eclipse.org/downloads Links to an external site., and unzip the downloaded file into a directory of your choice.

Or you are using a Package Manager such as:
sudo apt-get install eclipse eclipse-cdt g++ -y or choco install eclipse -y

Now if you are on windows you have to install MinGW GCC or Cygwin GCC (or hopefully one day Bash on Windows). Once you install them, add the 'bin' folder in the installed path to the environment variables and then restart eclipse. You should now see MinGW compiler when you select "Create new C Project".

Here is a helpful tutorial: How to Install Eclipse and Get Started on Windows Links to an external site.