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Best "Visual Studio" Alternative On Linux

Posted by timothy on from the sidestepping-the-inevitable-embrace dept.

Microsoft ISV writes: "We are beginning the next major release of our product, and we have been a Microsoft ISV for many years. In a few months Microsoft will be entering our market, and we wish to hedge our bets by supporting Linux in this next new major release. Can you ask your readership what is the best 'Visual Studio' like IDE for Linux? Especially for an ISV who will be maintaining the same product on both Windows and Linux?" Or is there even such a thing?

7 of 82 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Metrowerks CodeWarrior by johnjones · · Score: 4, Informative

    it sucks as a linux dev because the visual translation layer for X (so it looks the same on all platforms) is horribly broken for linux

    very bad hope it improves but I dont hold my breath

    regards

    john jones

  2. XEmacs by Alex+Belits · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Other environments may be better looking or follow languages' syntax more closely, but XEmacs certainly is most flexible and gives least amount of distraction to the programmer.

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    Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
  3. Re:Serious question... by JabberWokky · · Score: 5, Informative
    I am a developer. KDevelop is very good (the K means it runs under KDE, not that it is just for making KDE apps - it makes command-line, KDE and Gnome apps also). If you develop a Qt App, you can cross-compile for Windows as well. It's also Free in every sense of the word, if that matters to you.

    On the commercial side, KDE Studio Gold from the Kompany looks to be even better, and they also have Blackadder for Python and Ruby development if you need that. And language legends Borland are in the process of bringing over most of their modern packages including Delphi (confusingly renamed Kylix), Java and C++. Right now, Kylix is available, with C++ Builder and JBuilder coming in the next few months. Again, as long as you stay away from OS specific API calls (that does for Linux and Windows), you can reuse all objects and source with a simple recompile aimed at either Windows or Linux.

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    Evan

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    "$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
  4. What language are you currently developing with? by wrinkledshirt · · Score: 4, Informative
    Seems like that would be the most important question. Recommending Kylix to a group of people who know nothing about Pascal doesn't seem like such a hot idea, nor does recommending KDevelop to Visual Basic developers...

    If you like C++, go with KDevelop.
    If you prefer C and can do XML, go with a combination of a good editor, gcc and Glade.
    If you like Pascal, go with Kylix.
    If you like Java, there's Forte (don't know anything about it).
    If you like Visual Basic, get ready to buckle down and learn a new language...
    Also, consider giving Emacs a whirl. It's scary as all git, but it does just about everything short of fixing you a sandwhich.

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    Bleah! Heh heh heh... BLEAH BLEAH!!! Ha ha ha ha...

  5. Re:Serious question... by DeeKayWon · · Score: 4, Informative
    I believe it stands for Independant Software Vendor.

    To answer the question, I may not be a developer, but I have heard good things about KDevelop.

  6. Metrowerks CodeWarrior by Smitty825 · · Score: 4, Informative

    Although I've never used their products for anything but Mac and Palm development, I've had lots of success with Metrowerks Codewarrior. They have Win32, Mac, Solaris and Linux versions available (...and versions for the PS2, Nintendo 64, etc).

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    Doh!
  7. Komodo by winterstorm · · Score: 4, Informative

    Komodo from Activestate is very "Visual Studio"-ish and supports PERL, Python, PHP, and a lot more.

    You might look at Sun's Forte as well.