Microsoft Visual C++

Microsoft Visual Studio C++ .NET Standard 2003 Microsoft Visual Studio is a good compiler for developing Windows applications. Although Visual Studio presents a ton of choices to the user when first starting out (for instance, there are a lot of different project types), the amount of choice gives a good idea of the overall scope of this tool. This is a truly high-end compiler and it also comes with Microsoft's Visual Studio IDE, which many people swear by.

For Windows programming, there's nothing better than Visual Studio-- it come with a pretty powerful IDE including the basics such as syntax highlighting and code formatting, nice features like keyword completion and the ability to get the type for any variable, and a great debugger. It is expensive, but if you want to program for Windows, it's a good choice.

Visual Studio Tips and Tricks

Visual Studio has an excellent and highly configurable debugger. We have an entire series of articles that covers using Visual Studio effectively:

Debugging with Visual Studio, Part 1: Debugging Concepts

Debugging with Visual Studio, Part 2: Setting up the IDE

Debugging with Visual Studio, Part 3: Using Breakpoints Effectively

Debugging with Visual Studio, Part 4: Setting up Code for the Debugger

Debugging with Visual Studio, Part 5: Using Trace and Log Messages

Debugging with Visual Studio, Part 6: Remote Debugging

5 Awesome Visual Studio Debugger Features

avoid stepping into common functions (like operator new or STL containers).