Complexities of Software

For another project I'm on (C++ casual game development), I am installing Netbeans. This is a Sun platform and IDE and includes C/C++ development with GCC/G++ though it's meant for Java development as well. It's a bit simpler than a full blown Eclipse which is a very powerful build system. Also because it's a collaborative project and my fellow developer is comfortable with Netbeans.

I had a dabble with J2ME development (mobile phone game development in Java) before I was writing for About.com but was put off by the fact that every mobile phone has a slightly different version of J2ME! But I used Netbeans back then so am happy to reacquaint myself with it.

So to install Netbeans (with the C/C++ add-in) you need a JDK. Maybe it's me but I find the whole Java installation excessively complicated. Having installed Netbeans with the JDK, I then have to run the C/C++ Netbeans install. That only takes a couple of seconds but then there's 12 updates available which takes about 3 minutes, then have to close it down so the updates can be activated then rerun it! Phew. Oh and when it's run there are 2 more updates.

On the good side it has detected and picked up the GCC and g++ (C/C++ compilers) I installed earlier. When I last used Netbeans it was at version 4.0. 6.1 is pretty impressive. I'm taking notes on the whole process and will write it up.

• Link to C++ Tutorials