I’ve been studying Java for a while and I feel really comfortable with the fact that I could get the JDK and official compiler form Sun’s page, the API is easy to check and find what I need and how to use it.
I am interested in learning C++ but I’m a little bit confused on how the Standard Library works compared to the class libraries in Java. I come to you with these questions:
-> How is the Standard Library different and how does it work?
-> What’s the difference between using one compiler instead of another.
-> What are some good compilers and IDEs you would recommend to someone that’s starting?
Thanks in advance
The answer to your first question would fill one or more books. Go buy one of those books. Besides, there is really no requirement to use the standard library in the first place, as your OS provides APIs that may or may not be better suited for your tasks, and may or may not use parts of the standard library.
The difference between compilers involves things such as quality of the generated code, the degree of standards-compliance in the language implementation and library implementation, the quality of error messages, and fancy stuff like debugging.
The standard compiler these days is pretty much gcc. If you're using Windows, get the mingw version. As for IDEs, I guess Dev-C++ might be useful, but I haven't tried it.
> How is the Standard Library different and how does it work?
Plenty of templating magic. It's also less kitchen-sink than Java's. This is a mixed blessing.
> I guess Dev-C++ might be useful, but I haven't tried it.
Dev-C++ is effectively dead. An alternative is Code::Blocks, which works fair enough.
The development practices of the Code::Blocks dev team are a bit of a joke though.