Beginning C++ 2, Creating the Build Environment

Creating the Build Environment

In this article I’ll describe how to setup the Visual C++ 2008 build environment on the Windows platform.

Windows Platforms and the SDK
The simplest Windows build environment consists of just the operating system and the freely downloadable platform SDK. The platform SDK consists of all the header files, library files, debug files (pdbs) that are needed to develop applications on Windows. It also comes with the compilers and linkers needed to compile any of C++ or C# programs you might create. However it lacks a User Interface for development so you would have to do all your development with the command prompt and a text editor.

An alternative free windows platform is to use Visual Studio C++ Express Edition. This package includes a slightly older version of the platform SDK but it has the excellent Visual Studio Integrated Development Environment (IDE) packaged in with it.

If you have some money, you could also use Visual Studio 2008 Standard, Professional or Team Suite.

In this tutorial I’m going to assume the usage of Visual Studio 2008 C++ Express Edition. However I aim to have everything buildable on a plain platform SDK installation all the way up to a Team Suite install.

Installing Visual Studio 2008 C++ Express Edition

The web install is available from here: http://www.microsoft.com/express/download/.

If you are going to be reinstalling it on other computers, consider downloading the dvd image (.iso). You’ll find the option to download it at the bottom of microsoft’s web install page.

Download Boost

Boost is a well supported cross-platform library. It has many useful tools that will make your programming tasks vastly simpler. Many of the Boost libraries eventually make their way into the Standard C++ library. You may visit the boost website at: www.boost.org and you can download boost from http://www.boost.org/users/download/.

Boost is really easy to use, you only need to put it in your development tree and you’ll be able to use most of it’s libraries. The majority of it’s libraries do not need to be precompiled and can simply be included into your projects with no hassle.

That’s it for now

In the next installment, I’ll describe setting up your development tree.

Happy Programming