Re: intuitive IDE for gcc on linux ?

[bgat at open-widgets dot com]

On Wed, Apr 18, 2001 at 08:28:23AM +0100, Yves Rutschle wrote:
> > I was wondering if there is any intuitive integrated 
> > development environment for cross-gcc.
> 
> Well, all my tools are fully integrated into bash, I quite
> like it myself :-)

Agreed.  :^)

> For more GUI-like stuff, you might want to have a look at
> Source Navigator, which is somewhat like Visual Studio. I am
> not sure it supports cross-compiling straight out of the box,
> but it shouldn't be much of a problem to adapt (there are
> people here using Visual Studio for cross compiling, so
> why not...)
> I believe CodeMagic could fill the spot as well. It was
> once targeted for Perl, and then they realised they could
> do whatever with it...

Another option is called "Code Crusader", at newplanetsoftware.com.
Haven't used the whole thing, but I've tinkered with older versions of
Code Medic (the debugger portion).

If you want just graphical debugging, there's also the Data Display
Debugger, and Insight.  Both are great enhancements to gdb.

> > In general, what are all the good things about gcc I can 
> > tell? (i already mention quite a few to my boss)

Hmmm....

Start by saying that you *don't* want an IDE, really.  You want to
select the best-of-breed tools for each phase of the development
cycle.  I hate IDEs that are also editors, build managers, and version
managers--- they tend to do nothing at all well.  That's why I use
Emacs, GNU Make, and CVS.  I also use DDD on occasion, when I'm
debugging complicated data structures that are tough to visualize in
the stock gdb command-line interface.

As for gcc in particular, it simply rocks for embedded work because
(a) you have the source code for every instruction cycle your target
system runs, and (b) gcc has some great features for embedded work.

Regarding the source code, gcc includes the libraries it uses for
things like floating point emulation, so you can fine-tune or at least
understand what's going on if those kinds of things are important to
you.

As far as features go, gcc has a great inline assembly facility, and
the optimizers are pretty impressive as well.  And gcc integrates
seamlessly with gdb, which I think is simply the best embedded
debugger available at any price.


b.g.
-- 
Bill Gatliff
bgat@open-widgets.com

------
Want more information?  See the CrossGCC FAQ, http://www.objsw.com/CrossGCC/
Want to unsubscribe? Send a note to crossgcc-unsubscribe@sourceware.cygnus.com